ZAE Bayern has been chosen as one of the five outstanding finalists of the Ruggero Bertani European Geothermal Innovation Awards 2020.
In shallow geothermal systems, the thermal response test is the procedure commonly used to measure thermal underground properties. The research project “QEWS II” developed and tested a test rig to ensure the quality of thermal response test devices.
The test rig emulates the thermal behaviour of a real borehole heat exchanger of different lengths and underground properties.
The thermal response test unit is connected to the emulated borehole in the same way as it would be to the real borehole. This way, it reproduces the emulated underground properties with accuracy and can determine whether the unit works correctly.
This project is one of a kind. There is not such a test rig available on the market today. Before this device was developed, the only way to compare different thermal response test units was to test them at the same real borehole where the boundary conditions vary, and the underground properties are not perfectly known.
The winner of this year edition should have been announced at the GeoTHERM Expo & Congress in Offenburg (Germany) on 5 March. But GeoTHERM and the European Geothermal Innovation Awards Ceremony have been postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak.
We will give more information in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!
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