Geothermal heating on its way to oil-dependent towns

“Our vision is to expand district heating in Denmark. We have adapted “the district heating way of thinking” and applied it to our project. The geothermal heating system is built as both a collective and as an individual solution”, explains Søren Andersen.

We are creating a collective network of geothermal heat drillings and individual heat pumps installed in each household. They are connected by a collective transmission system, he says.

A one-year project
At present, KOLD’s small scaled district heating network connects three households and one community centre.

“The project itself will run for one year. We are preparing trials right now. At the beginning of 2017, we will place the transmission system and begin drilling. We will install the heat pumps afterwards. During the rest of the period we will gather data and calculate the outcome of moving to a larger scale”, says Søren Andersen who is not worried about the outcome:

“I am from a company where I have made many geothermal heat pump systems for households. According to my calculations, a collective system will have no problem competing with existing heat sources and individual systems since we remove the burden of investment from households and place it on the thermal plant. The consumers then pay the bill just as they normally with district heating”, explains Søren Andersen.

Søren Andersen and Billund Varmeværk are hoping that the solution will allow many of the Danish households to receive the district heating that they do not currently have access to.

Source: Energy Supply / State of Green