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Geothermal project kicking off at Lavey-les-Bains, Switzerland

Geothermal project kicking off at Lavey-les-Bains, Switzerland Project site at Lavey-les-Bains, Switzerland (source: AGEPP/ Régis Colombo/ www.diapo.ch)
Alexander Richter 25 Mar 2021

The geothermal heat and power project in Lavey-les-Bains, Switzerland has started preparation for drilling activities that are to start in the summer of 2021.

A long time in the making, we first reported on the potential of a project back in 2011, the geothermal heat and power project in Lavey-les-Bains, a thermal spa town in Switzerland is now kicking off for real. Delayed by one year for the announced preparation for drilling, groundbreaking on the site has now kicked off this week. The immediate task will be to install the drilling platform, near the existing wells, which supply the Bains de Lavey. An area of ??5,000 m2 will be developed to accommodate the drilling machine, but also a sludge treatment unit, a storage area or a retention basin.

This preparatory stage will last five months. The actual drilling will begin at the end of the summer, announce the managers of the company AGEPP SA, which brings together the actors carrying the project, including Holdigaz, EOS, Romande Énergie or the Communes of Lavey-Morcles and Saint-Maurice. (VS). The lights had been green since October 2019, but the desire to coordinate the construction of the plant with another geothermal project in Vinzel had led the company to postpone drilling in Lavey by one year .

The site will not be without generating some nuisance: AGEPP estimates that cars and heavy goods vehicles will perform twenty rotations daily on average between 7 and 18 hours.

The well to be drilled should make it possible to capture water at a depth of more than 2,000m at 110 degrees Celsius with a flow rate of 40 liters / second. It will supply the Bains de Lavey, while producing the equivalent of the electricity consumption of 900 households, or 4.2 GWh per year.

Source: 24 heures