Large-scale seismic campaign for geothermal in the Netherlands hits 1,000 km data mark
Ongoing work at the SCAN project, Netherlands (source: EBN)
Alexander Richter
9 Dec 2020
As part of a large-scale seismic campaign, researchers have just reached the 1,000km milestone. Data has been collected for 1,000km with the goal to map geothermal resources in the Netherlands.
The Seismic Campaign for Geothermal Energy in the Netherlands (SCAN) program has reached a new milestone this week. Rossingh Geophysics collected the 1000th kilometer of data at the municipality of Laarbeek (North Brabant).
SCAN examines the Dutch foundation for the future use of geothermal energy, a work that begun in the summer of 2019. With the project it is tried to evaluate resources particularly in those areas in the Netherlands where the has been so far insufficient data available. Energie Beheer Netherlands (EBN) and TNO conduct the program on behalf of the Ministry of Economic and Climate Affairs.
Setting up and running this operation smoothly is a considerable logistical task: it moves along carefully defined straight lines of tens of kilometers through the Dutch landscape. The survey has now visited more than 130 municipalities. Approximately 16,000 holes were drilled, nearly 200,000 geophones installed and more than 148,000 hours worked in the field.
With 1000 kilometers on the clock, the seismic survey is far from over, it is expected to continue until the end of 2021 . But then the SCAN – program not ready yet. Gitta Zaalberg, program manager geotechnical operations at EBN: ” Besides reworking of existing and the collection of new seismic data is now also made the first preparations for scientific drilling. The drillings give us an even better insight into the subsurface. And that brings us step by step closer to realizing sustainable heat. ”
Source: EBN
