8 proposals for up to EUR 70m received for EGS projects under EU funding scheme
EGS Stimulation Fluid Diagram by the PNNL & US DOE (Source: Phys Org)
Alexander Richter
8 Sep 2017
Under a new funding round of the EU Commission, 8 proposals have been received for EGS related research projects totalling funding of $84 million.
Under the new funding round of the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency under the EU Commission, 83 energy research proposals were received. The total available budget for this Low-Carbon Energy call is EUR 105 million ($125 million), as announced by INEA before the weekend.
Successful projects are expected to demonstrate clean energy technology and propose near-to-market solutions for renewable energy sources. In total, nine topics were open for application in this round of the Low-Carbon Energy call.
The results of the evaluation will be known no later than 07 February 2018. The selection of projects will be done by external independent experts. These evaluators are drawn from the European Commission’s database.
The Commission is looking to expand the database through a call for experts covering a very broad range of fields. If you fit the profile and would like to be considered for evaluations, please sign up in the Participant Portal.
As part of the funding groups, two are related to geothermal energy.
Budget Call LCE-17-2017: Easier to install and more efficient geothermal systems for retrofitting buildings
This call relates to geothermal heat pump applications with an available budget of EUR 8 million with 10 applications received totalling requested project funding of a total of EUR 48.9 million.
Budget Call LCE-18-2017: Enhanced Geothermal Systems in different geological systems
This call relates to project on enhanced/ engineered geothermal systems with an available budget of EUR 10 million with 8 applications received totalling requested project funding with a total of EUR 70.7 million.
Specific Challenge – Geothermal resources at medium-high temperature can produce at competitive costs electricity, heat or a combination of both. Routinely created enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) offer the opportunity to produce geothermal energy throughout Europe, including in locations where natural reservoirs are not available. In order to increase the number of geothermal installations, enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) have to be demonstrated as cost-competitive whereby innovative solutions are needed to allow for applications in geologic systems with different characteristics and of different origin.
Scope – Proposals should aim at testing EGS systems to ensure reservoir productivity in different geological settings and energy production at competitive costs. Proposals could propose up-scaling existing EGS systems.
TRL 7 shall be achieved at the end of project activities (please see part G of the General Annexes).
Opening the project’s test sites, pilot and demonstration facilities, or research infrastructures for practice oriented education, training or knowledge exchange is encouraged.
The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 6 to 10 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.
Expected Impact – The actions will provide the data and the experience required to lower the costs for geothermal electricity and heat production in different geological conditions applying the EGS technology. The action will contribute to increase the penetration of geothermal energy by demonstrating the viability of EGS.
ThinkGeoEnergy will report on details of the proposals/ winners when it is made available.
Source: News release by EU Commission
