Project

Increasing the share of renewable energies is one of the cornerstones of the Swiss Energy Strategy 2050. Geothermal energy is among other renewables a promising resource for electricity and heat production. It makes use of the enormous heat captured deep underground. For this purpose, cold water is injected at high pressure into the rock, where it heats up before it is pumped back to the surface. In Switzerland, the temperature rises by approximately 30 C° for every kilometer below the surface towards the center of the Earth. To benefit from this resource for electricity production, rock structures at temperatures of at least 180 to 200 C° at depths of 4 to 5 kilometers have to be accessed.

At the “Bedretto Underground Laboratory for Geoenergies” techniques and procedures for a safe, efficient, and sustainable use of geothermal heat are studied.  To this end, a sufficiently permeable reservoir is necessary which is accessible on a long-term basis. The Bedretto tunnel offers ideal conditions to perform such experiments. The awarded project will allow the development of an extensive monitoring network to develop new procedures to extract the geothermal heat from such reservoirs. Researchers will conduct different experiments focusing on the geothermal processes involved. They will drill several boreholes, allowing them to place a variety of sensors to track even the smallest changes in stress, pressure, and fluid movements.