GeoEnvi – Life Cycle Assessment Methodology for deep geothermal energy projects
GEOENVI Life Cycle Assessment (image by Mudassar Iqbal from Pixabay)
Alexander Richter
16 Dec 2020
The GEOENVI project has developed a simplified LCA method to assess the environmental impacts of planned or already in operation deep geothermal energy plants.
The EU-funded GEOENVI project, managed by the European Geothermal Energy Council (EGEC) works on the development of a simplified LCA method to assess the environmental impacts of planned or already in operation deep geothermal energy plants. The purpose of this methodology is to help prospective deep geothermal energy project developers to evaluate the environmental performance of their planned project, in particular against fossil alternatives. The use of the GEOENVI LCA methodology allows to quantify at quickly with a burden on developers what benefits will result from the development of the geothermal project and allows public acceptance and engagement.
To design the LCA methodology in the framework of the GEOENVI project, several LCA experts and geothermal energy stakeholders came together to identify how to best quantify the expected environmental impacts and benefits of a planned geothermal project. To develop up this methodology, several case studies were used, providing a typology of geothermal power and heat plants. From the full lifecycle assessment of several key case studies, a simplified methodology can be established. From this methodology developers can obtain a reliable estimate of the impact of their planned project, which can support the application process of the plants and feed into such requirements and undertaking Environmental Impact Assessments.
The development of the simplified LCA methodology is ongoing, but this page already serves as a relay between the community of geothermal energy developers and the GEOENVI Consortium working on a methodology that combines ease of use with scientific robustness and trustworthy results that can inform the development process to correct potential excessive impacts from the geothermal projects, or to support the argument of the project’s benefits.
Watch below GEOENVI’s webinar on the new LCA tool
Training materials for GeoEnvi’s Life Cycle Assessment of Deep Geothermal Installations
- Booklet with training materials for GEOENVI’s LCA and simplified models
- Watch the tutorial to generate LCA simplified models for geothermal systems – GEOENVI project
- Find here the Jupyter script of the video tutorial to generate simplified models and check out the links in the script
Useful publications
- Panorama of sustainability studies: A comprehensive analysis of the panorama of studies reporting environmental assessment and sustainability assessment for geothermal systems
- LCA guidelines for geothermal installations
- Generation of simplified parametrised models for a selection of GEOENVI geothermal installations categories
- Elaboration of a general protocol to generate simplified models for geothermal installations
Source: GeoEnvi
