iCRAG Co-Principal Investigator Prof. John Walsh will be collaborating on a first-of-its-kind system in the UK which is being trialled in Edinburgh to see if waste heat from a large computing facility can be stored in disused mine workings and used to warm homes.
The large amounts of energy needed to power the University of Edinburgh’s Advanced Computing Facility (ACF) could be recycled to heat at least 5,000 households in Scotland’s capital.
The facility, home to the national supercomputer and used for research such as national climate modelling and health data modelling, currently releases up to 70 GWh of excess heat per year.
This is projected to rise to 272GWh once the UK Government’s recently announced next-generation Exascale supercomputer is installed at the University.
The £2.6 million feasibility study will examine how the water in old mine workings near the computing facility could be harnessed to heat people’s homes.
The process of cooling the supercomputers would be augmented to transfer the captured heat into the mine water – up to a maximum temperature of 40°C – which would then be transported by natural ground water flow in the mine workings, and made available to warm people’s homes via heat pump technology.
If successful, the study could provide a global blueprint for converting abandoned flooded coal, shale and mineral mine networks into underground heat storage.
With a quarter of UK homes sitting above former mines, potentially seven million households could have their heating needs met this way, researchers say.
Prof. John Walsh said: "With nearly 40% of Ireland’s CO2 emissions arising from heat demand, renewable sources of heat are urgently required. In this project we are investigating how the subsurface geology, and disused mine workings in particular, can be used as a geobattery for the capture and storage of heat. We are particularly interested in the seasonal storage and re-use of heat generated from a variety of industrial sources, including large computing facilities and data centres. The main objective is to develop innovative methods for underground heat storage which will capitalize on the mining heritage and the growth of high-tech industry in Ireland, Scotland and the US".
The Edinburgh Geobattery project – led by Edinburgh-based geothermal company TownRock Energy – is being spearheaded by industry and academic partners from Scotland, the US and Ireland.
The University of Edinburgh is the lead research partner on the project and is providing £500k of funding as part of its own net zero objectives.
Scottish Enterprise has awarded a £1 million grant to the project through the Joint Programming Platform Smart Energy Systems (JPP SES) and Geothermica – two networks that have co-funded projects developing innovative heat and cooling solutions.
A further £1 million from the U.S. Department of Energy will fund researchers from the Idaho National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
University College Dublin, whose researchers are funded by Geothermica and the Geological Survey Ireland, and the University of Strathclyde are also project partners.
Director of iCRAG Prof. Murray Hitzman commented: "The Geobattery project is a prime example of international collaboration and innovative science. I wish to congratulate Prof . John Walsh and his team for their involvement thus far. In iCRAG, our focus is on creating solutions for a sustainable society and the Edinburgh Geobattery project leverages our extensive expertise in sustainable geoscience. I look forward to seeing the results of the project as it progresses."
Lead academic on the project, Professor Christopher McDermott, from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Geosciences, said: “This project opens up the potential for extracting heat stored in mine water more broadly. Most disused coalmines are flooded with water, making them ideal heat sources for heat pumps. With more than 800,000 households in Scotland in fuel poverty, bringing energy costs down in a sustainable way is critical, and using waste heat could be a game-changer.”
For details about the Edinburgh Geobattery project, please visit: Galleries to Calories (G2C) | The University of Edinburgh