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Martin Bloemendal attended the European Geothermal conference

From September 19-22 I attended the European Geothermal conference, a once in every 2-3 year event which was hosted in Strasbourg this year, the number of participant was about 800. I presented the work I did with KWR colleague Niels Hartog, in this oral presentation we introduced several new design aspects for aquifer thermal energy storage wells, which are not used in current practice. I also co-authored 2 presentations from TUDelft colleagues Marc Jaxa-Rozen and Vahab Rostampour, about our research on ATES smart grids. For the conference papers of these talks please send me an e-mail.

Next to presenting I also attended other presentations and did some networking. Some lessons/conclusion/results from that:

  • Geothermal energy production has CO2 emissions, comparable with nuclear and wind power production.
  • Like in the Netherlands, in other countries research on geothermal energy storage is focusing on operational aspect in actually realizing CO2-emission reduction. Complexity in system design should be avoided, or mastered during operation.
  • @EGU in Vienna 2017 I will again co-convene the session on geothermal energy.
  • EGDP’s are a nice way to meet fellow PhD’s, so in other conferences like these we can have a nice evening program.. next year in Bochum.

Martin Bloemendal, KWR

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