A Case Study of Thermal Evolution in the Vicinity of Geothermal Probes Following a Distributed TRT Method

• Main Authors: Hans Schwarz, Borja Badenes, Jan Wagner, José Manuel Cuevas, Javier Urchueguía, David Bertermann
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-05-01
• Series: Energies
• Subjects: thermal evolution; thermal soil properties; shallow geothermal systems; distributed thermal response test (DTRT); wireless distributed temperature sensing (DTS); electrical resistivity tomography (ERT)
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/9/2632

To meet the stated climate change targets and to ensure the capability of meeting the current and future energy demands, there is an urgent need to develop renewable energy sources, such as geothermal systems. If geothermal systems are to be cost-efficient and are to enjoy public confidence, it is essential that they are designed and installed in accordance with the prevailing site-specific conditions. A thorough understanding of the thermal behaviour of the surrounding ground is, therefore, critical. In this work, we investigated temperature and its evolution in the vicinity of a shallow geothermal helix-shaped borehole heat exchanger (BHE). To measure the temperature close to the actual geothermal system, an additional U-tube probe was installed at the edge of the same borehole. A thermal load was then applied to the BHE, and the temperature was detected in the nearby U-tube. The temperature measurements were made with a GEOSniff monitoring device. To understand these localised temperature measurements in the context of the Valencia test site, ERT measurements were also performed. The GEOSniff device permits measurements to be made with very high depth resolution, which allows the thermal properties of the surrounding ground to be derived precisely, thus, enabling the identification of the different textural domains.