Numerical Models for Assessing the Performance of Thermal Energy Storage and Transport Via Underground Mine Workings

Abstract

The Galleries2Calories (G2C) project is part of the Geothermica Consortium, including partners from Scotland, Ireland and the USA. It investigates the use of legacy mine workings for thermal energy storage and transport networks in Edinburgh, Scotland. The concept, called the Geobattery, is to inject heated water from a data center to abandoned flooded coal mine workings that will convey the water kilometers downstream, where it can be used for district heating. The project could provide a sustainable clean solution for home heating potentially applicable to many other locations with waste heat and abandoned mine workings in the UK and globally. However, the storage and transport of waste industrial heat in mine workings is challenging due to the complexity and uncertainty of the interconnected and often collapsed nature of the mine workings. The US teams (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory) are using numerical models to assess both short-term and long-term thermal performance of the Geobattery and to study potential design variations and risks. Here, we present these model studies and potential implications to the project.