Heating homes with mine water: a numerical modelling approach

Worldwide, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from energy use in buildings accounts for 17.5% of total emissions. These emissions are mostly linked to the need for heating and cooling. One such form of energy is mine water geothermal heat (MWGH). This resource’s sustainability, however, is only as good as its proper management. The poor understanding of the artificial mine working interaction with the natural environment makes the investment in these projects risky compared to other alternatives.

Our research addresses this problem by developing a numerical modelling tool designed to provide greater insight and help quantify the risk at a feasibility stage. Our method combines numerical and analytical approaches with digitised legacy mine data to estimate the variations in the abstraction water temperature over the lifetime of a project. We developed a novel weighting function to account for the interference between the galleries, an aspect which is overlooked in previous work, and leads to an overestimate of the heat resource.

In this talk I will present the tool, the philosophy behind it and its current capabilities.

Julien is a French National who has been living in the UK for over half his life. He has a PhD in geological energy storage using compressed air, an MSc in Carbon Capture and Storage, both from the University of Edinburgh, and a BSc in Environmental Geosciences, from UCL.

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