An integrated 3D approach to assess the geothermal heat-exchange potential: The case study of western Sicily (southern Italy)

Alessandro Santilano, Assunta Donato, Antonio Galgaro, Domenico Montanari, Antonio Menghini, Andrea Viezzoli, Eloisa Di Sipio, Elisa Destro and Adele Manzella

Renewable Energy, 2016, vol. 97, issue C, 611-624

Abstract: This paper presents a multidisciplinary methodology to estimate the underground heat-exchange potential for Borehole Heat Exchangers (BHEs) coupled with Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHPs) over wide areas. The proposed methodology was tested in four sites in western Sicily (southern Italy) where the shortage of subsurface geological data, in addition to the undefined authorization processes for this kind of system, is probably the main barrier to planning and exploiting geothermal heat for heating and cooling purposes. Reliable high-resolution 3D geological and petrophysical models were built based on the integration of airborne electromagnetic data and laboratory measurements of the thermal properties of rock samples. A GIS-based procedure was applied to assess the geothermal heat-exchange potential using 3D models of thermal conductivity as the main input. The results of the analyses are represented by thematic maps of the underground heat exchange potential for BHEs coupled with GSHPs. The study areas show a generally high suitability for the use of this technology and several municipalities in the area could take advantage of the resulting maps for energy planning.

Keywords: Borehole heat exchangers; Geothermal energy; Ground thermal conductivity; Heat-exchange ground potential; 3D geological modelling; Airborne electromagnetics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148116304827
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:97:y:2016:i:c:p:611-624

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2016.05.072

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().