在美国明尼苏达州罗切斯特市政厅前正在钻探两口地热井。这些井将成为计划中的地热供暖和制冷系统的基础，该系统将为市中心至少100万平方英尺的空间提供服务，包括市政厅、梅奥市民中心和公共图书馆。

“完成后，我们将拥有明尼苏达州第二个使用地热供暖和制冷的市政厅，这非常令人兴奋。”曾担任住房和可持续发展主任并参与推动地热项目的凯文·布莱特说。

地热的发展是该市在未来三十年内将温室气体减排100%的战略的一部分。长期计划是创建一个地下管网，高效供应市中心的新住宅和商业建筑的供暖和制冷。

官员表示，该项目的初步阶段预计将于2025年完成。

倡导组织FreshEnergy的董事总经理乔·达梅尔描述了当更多建筑物连接在一起时，这样的系统变得更加高效。“你利用储存在地下的热量来加热建筑物，所以你从地下提取热量并将其输送到建筑物中。在制冷模式下，你从建筑物中提取热量并将其放回地下储存。”

联邦融资为地热铺平了道路罗切斯特的地热项目因为新的联邦融资选项而变得具有财务可行性，这些选项激励了能够减少大规模碳排放的项目。正如达梅尔所说，国会大约一年前通过的《通胀减少法案》消除了地热的通常成本障碍。

罗切斯特地热系统的预计成本约为3400万美元。其中约一半的成本将由《通胀减少法案》的激励措施以及较小的公共资金来源承担。

“州和联邦政策正在朝着一种不同的供暖方式转变。我们认为在明尼苏达州，网络地热是一种非常有前景的技术来实现这一目标。”达梅尔进一步评论道。

本土技术的好处

技术也是实现该项目的关键驱动因素之一。该系统只需要钻探两口井，这得益于明尼苏达大学开发并由DarcySolutions商业化的设计创新。

“我们所做的是与地下水层中的地下水交换能量，而不仅仅是与地面、土壤和岩石交换能量。”DarcySolutions的首席运营官安德鲁·斯坦纳说。

通过利用自然存在的含水层，地热热泵在供暖和制冷方面不需要做太多工作。这意味着地热系统可以有更小的占地面积，需要钻探更少的井，从而降低资本和运营成本。

来源：MPRNews

Twogeothermal wells are being drilled right in front of the City Hall of Rochester in Minnesota, U.S. These wells will be the foundation of a planned geothermal heating and cooling system that will serve at least 1 million square feet of downtown space including the City Hall, the Mayo Civic Center, and the public library.

“Afterit’s completed and the project’s done, we’ll have the second city hall in Minnesota that is electrically heated and cooled with geothermal, which is pretty exciting,” said Kevin Bright, former director of housing and sustainability and one of the people who helped launch the geothermal project.

Thedevelopment of geothermal is part of the city’s strategy to reduce greenhouse gases by 100% over the next three decades. The long-term plan would be to create an underground network of pipes that will efficiently supply heating and cooling to the new residential and commercial buildings downtown.

Theinitial phases of this project is expected to be completed by 2025, officials say.

JoeDammel, Managing Director of the advocacy group Fresh Energy, described how such a system becomes more efficient when more buildings are linked together. “Youuse the heat that’s stored there as a way to heat a building so you’re pulling heat from the ground and putting it into buildings. In cooling mode, you’re pulling heat from buildings and putting it back to the ground for storage.”

Federalfinancing paved the way for geothermalThegeothermal project in Rochester has become financially feasible because of new federal financing options incentivizing project that result in large-scale carbon emissions. As Dammel said, theInflation Reduction Actthat Congress passed about a year  ago has removed the usual cost barriers of geothermal.

Theprojected cost of Rochester’s geothermal system is about USD 34 million. About half of that cost will be covered by incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as smaller public funding sources.

“Thestate and federal policy is really shifting towards a different way of heating. And we think in Minnesota that network geothermal is a really promising technology to accomplish that,”Dammel further commented.

Thebenefit of homegrown technology

Technologyhas also been one of the key drivers for the realization of this project. The system only requires the drilling of two wells thanks to the design innovations developed in the University of Minnesota and commercialized by DarcySolutions.

“Whatwe do is instead of exchanging energy with just the ground and soil and rock, we exchange energy with groundwater in the aquifers below us,”said Andrew Steiner, chief operating officer for Darcy Solutions.

Bytapping into naturally occurring aquifers, the geothermal heat pumps do not need to do a lot of work for heating and cooling. This means that geothermal systems can have smaller footprints and require the drilling of fewer wells, thus also reducing capital and operating costs.

Source:MPRNews