20th of October 2022
11:00-18:00 CEST

GEOTHERMAL ENERGY USE IN HEATING AND COOLING NETWORKS
Geothermal energy as well as district heating have a long tradition of use but still cover a marginal niche of around 1% of the European heating and cooling supply. In contrast, both concepts have a significant potential to cover future heating and cooling demands in the future at low costs, low emissions, high level of efficiency and supply guarantee. The benefits of Geothermal District Heating and Cooling must be made available to users so that society contributes to the increase in demand for these technologies.
ABOUT THE EVENT
The Geothermal District Heating and Cooling Day connected science and society by presenting recent developments and prospects, supporting the interlinking of stakeholders across Europe and jointly address present challenges and barriers for the deployment of geothermal energy supported heating and cooling networks in Europe.
Due to the special opportunity given by the European Geothermal Congress 2022, the first Geothermal District Heating and Cooling Day event had a strong focus on interconnecting researchers related to geothermal energy use in heating and cooling networks from a trans-disciplinary perspective.
During the afternoon session, CROWDTHERMAL held its final conference. During the Conference, the project team presented a set of reports, addressing social, environmental, financial, and risk mitigation aspects of community-financed geothermal projects.
The event was held in Berlin on 20 October 2022 as a side-event of the European Geothermal Congress.

Morning session
11:00 – Opening and welcome address by the organisers
11:10 – Status and perspectives of geothermal energy use in heating and cooling networks
- Valentin Gavan (ENGIE R&I Lab CRIGEN / Future Buildings and City): Gather, structure and capitalize low temperature district networks information to improve the DHC community operational knowledge and expertise
- Joao Figueira (Technical University of Lisbon) & Christopher Schifflechner (Technical University of Munich): Geothermal energy integration in European DHC systems: The 100 good reasons initiative by the EU COST Actions Geothermal-DHC
- Tamas Medgyes (District Heating Company of Szeged): Switching a gas based urban heating system to geothermal
- Amel Barich (Geothermal Research Cluster – GEORG): Social License to Operate: A tool to build social acceptance in geothermal energy
12:20 – Panel discussion: “What needs to be done to increase the share of geothermal energy in heating and cooling networks across Europe?”
The panel will consist of the speakers of the morning session and invited experts.
12:45 – Lunch break & Chat with the poster presenters
CROWDTHERMAL final conference
13:30 – Main results obtained and goals for the future – Isabel Fernandez, project Coordinator, European Federation of Geologists
Social acceptance of geothermal energy
13:40 – Geothermal social perception and public engagement approaches – Jan Hildebrand, IZES
14:00 – Geothermal environmental factors and mitigation – Anastasia Ioannou, Glasgow University
14:20 – Q&A
New finance schemes for geothermal energy
14:30 – Alternative finance schemes for geothermal projects – Karsten Wenzlaff, CFH
14:40 – Risk mitigation for geothermal projects – Christina Baisch, VES
15:00 – Q&A
CROWDTHERMAL Core Services
15:10 – CROWDTHERMAL Services for Communities, Local authorities and Project Developers – Marcio Tameirao, LPRC
15:20 – CROWDTHERMAL Decision tree – Anastasia Ioannou, Glasgow University
15:30 – Discussion on the Core Services
15:45 – Coffee break
15:45 – EGC Closing ceremony – break until 16:25
Poster presentations
Julia Diessl (Austrian Geothermal Association): Status of the InStRikE project: Induced Seismicity Risk Estimation in geothermal fields
Maria Milousi (University of Western Macedonia): A Life Cycle perspective of geothermal heating and cooling networks
Rao Martand Singh (NTNU): A Study of Groundwater based District Heating in Colchester UK
Fawad Ahmed (University of Naples “Parthenope”): Using European underground railroad tunnels as low enthalpy geothermal wells
Jessica Maria Chicco (University of Turin): The current legal framework for the use of shallow geothermal energy in district heating and cooling grids: comparison between EU Countries
Antonin Tym (Czech Geological Survey / Charles University Prague): SYNERGYS Geothermal project Litoměřice, Czechia
Open session: How to build on the outcomes of CROWDTHERMAL and CA18219
16:30 – Open discussion: DHC projects in Europe
17:10 – CROWDTHERMAL Metadatabase – Tamas Miklovicz, EFG
17:20 – Open discussion: Synergies between CA18219 and CROWDTHERMAL
17:50 – Wrap-up
18:00 – Closing the Conference
The mission of the Horizon 2020-funded CROWDTHERMAL project is to empower the European public to directly participate in the development of geothermal projects, with the help of alternative financing schemes and social engagement tools. CROWDTHERMAL aims to initiate a new form of public dialogue, during which it will be possible to jointly tackle concerns and increase interest in geothermal energy. The aim is to take public engagement to a new level, empowering citizens to directly participate in the development of geothermal projects with the help of alternative financing, such as crowdfunding. This will only be possible if public trust can be gained, and the transparency around geothermal projects (and their social and environmental impacts) can be maximised. For more information please visit: https://www.crowdthermalproject.eu
The EU COST Action CA18219 Geothermal-DHC represents a network addressing the integration of geothermal energy into decarbonized heating and cooling networks addressing the full range of geothermal technologies. Geothermal-DHC investigates concepts related to shallow geothermal in local heating and cooling networks (“5th generation networks”) towards direct geothermal energy use for district heating supply. Geothermal-DHC offers an inclusive European network currently covering more than 100 researchers and non-scientific stakeholders from around 40 countries around the world. For more information on this COST Action please visit www.geothermal-dhc.eu.