Characterizing cadastral plots to optimize BHE exploitations

Abstract

The uncontrolled implementation of shallow geothermal exploitations is starting to reduce their efficiency and sustainability. It is mandatory to develop specific management methodologies to register and control the exploitation of this energy resource. To ensure their widespread application, one of the properties of any management methodology must rely on simplicity, and, at the same time, the ability to reproduce the real behaviour of shallow geothermal exploitations.
In this work we present a methodology to control and limit the maximum shallow geothermal potential that can be extracted from a particular cadastral plot. It is a graphical method based on the geological, hydrogeological and geothermal properties of the area of interest.
According to the available space in the plot owned by the user, the optimal shallow geothermal potential is graphically calculated to adapt its area of thermal influence to the cadastral plot. This can be achieved with the Characteristic Thermal Curve, an automatically created graph that represents the extracted geothermal potential against the length and width of the thermal plume.
The optimal shallow geothermal potential will produced a thermal impact which should remain completely inside the plot. If the exploited shallow geothermal potential is greater than this optimal, the exploitation will deplete the energy resource of the user’s plot. Thus, the neighbours could suffer thermal interferences, which will impact on the efficiency of their exploitations.