MSGID: 1:317/3 642e4af5   
   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    Underground water could be the solution to green heating and cooling   
    Decarbonizing the grid means storing energy from renewables. Aquifers can   
   do that.    
      
     Date:   
         April 5, 2023   
     Source:   
         DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory   
     Summary:   
         About 12% of the total global energy demand comes from heating   
         and cooling homes and businesses. A new study suggests that using   
         underground water to maintain comfortable temperatures could reduce   
         consumption of natural gas and electricity in this sector by 40%   
         in the United States.   
      
         The approach, called aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES), could   
         also help prevent blackouts caused by high power demand during   
         extreme weather events.   
      
      
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   FULL STORY   
   ==========================================================================   
   About 12% of the total global energy demand comes from heating and cooling   
   homes and businesses. A new study suggests that using underground water   
   to maintain comfortable temperatures could reduce consumption of natural   
   gas and electricity in this sector by 40% in the U.S. The approach,   
   called aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES), could also help prevent   
   blackouts caused by high power demand during extreme weather events.   
      
      
   ==========================================================================   
   "We need storage to absorb the fluctuating energy from solar and wind,   
   and most people are interested in batteries and other kinds of electrical   
   storage. But we were wondering whether there's any opportunity to   
   use geothermal energy storage, because heating and cooling is such a   
   predominant part of the energy demand for buildings," said first author   
   A.T.D Perera, a former postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Berkeley   
   National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), now at Princeton University's   
   Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment.   
      
   "We found that, with ATES, a huge amount of energy can be stored, and   
   it can be stored for a long period of time," Perera said. "As a result,   
   the heating and cooling energy demand during extreme hot or cold periods   
   can be met without adding an additional burden on the grid, making urban   
   energy infrastructure more resilient."  The study, published this week   
   in Applied Energy, is one of the first examinations of how ATES could   
   fit into the larger goal of decarbonizing U.S.   
      
   energy systems by storing intermittent renewable energy to use when the   
   sun isn't shining and the turbines aren't spinning. After building a   
   comprehensive technological and economic simulation of an energy system,   
   the authors found that ATES is a compelling option for heating and cooling   
   energy storage that, alongside other technologies such as batteries,   
   could help end our reliance on fossil fuel-derived backup power and   
   enable a fully renewable grid.   
      
   Putting thermodynamics to work ATES is a delightfully simple concept that   
   leverages the heat-absorbing property of water and the natural geological   
   features of the planet. You simply pump water up from existing underground   
   reservoirs and heat it at the surface in the summer with environmental   
   heat or excess energy from solar, or any time of the year with wind. Then   
   you pump it back down.   
      
   "It actually stays fairly hot because the Earth is a pretty good   
   insulator," explained co-author Peter Nico, deputy director of the Energy   
   Geosciences Division at Berkeley Lab and lead of the Resilient Energy,   
   Water and Infrastructure Domain. "So then when you pull it up in the   
   winter, months later, that water's way hotter than the ambient air and   
   you can use it to heat your buildings. Or vice versa, you can pull up   
   water and let it cool and then you can put it back down and store it   
   until you need cooling during hot summer months. It's a way of storing   
   energy as temperature underground."  ATES is not yet widely used in the   
   U.S., though it is gaining recognition internationally, most notably in   
   the Netherlands. One major perk is that these systems get "free" thermal   
   energy from seasonal temperature changes, which can be bolstered by the   
   addition of artificial heating and cooling generated by electricity. As   
   such, they perform very well in areas with large seasonal fluctuations,   
   but have the potential to work anywhere, so long as there is wind or   
   solar to hook up to. In regards to other impacts, ATES systems are   
   designed to avoid impinging upon critical drinking water resources --   
   often the water used is from deeper aquifers than the drinking water   
   supply -- and do not introduce any chemicals into the water.   
      
   How does it perform?  To get some concrete numbers estimating how much   
   energy ATES could save on the U.S. grid, and how much it would cost to   
   deploy, the team designed a case study using a computational model of a   
   neighborhood in Chicago. This virtual neighborhood was composed of 58   
   two-story, single-family residence buildings with typical residential   
   heating and cooling that were hooked up to a simulation of an energy   
   grid with multiple possible energy sources and storage options, including   
   ATES. Future climate projections were used to understand how much of the   
   neighborhood's total energy budget is taken up by heating and cooling   
   demands currently, and how this might change in the future. Finally,   
   a microgrid simulation was designed for the neighborhood that included   
   renewable energy technologies and ATES to evaluate the technoeconomic   
   feasibility and climate resilience. Putting all these factors together   
   into one model would not have been possible without the team's diverse   
   expertise across the energy geosciences, climate science, and building   
   science fields.   
      
   The results showed that adding ATES to the grid could reduce consumption   
   of petroleum products by up to 40%, though it would cost 15 to 20%   
   more than existing energy storage technologies.   
      
   "But, on the other hand, energy storage technologies are having sharp   
   cost reductions, and after just a few years of developing ATES, we could   
   easily break even. That's why it's quite important that we start to   
   invest in this research and start building real-world prototype systems,"   
   said Perera.   
      
   "ATES does not need space compared with above-ground tank-based water   
   or ice storage systems. ATES is also more efficient and can scale up for   
   large community cooling or heating compared with traditional geothermal   
   heat pump systems that rely on heat transfer with the underground earth   
   soil," added Tianzhen Hong, a co-author and senior scientist at the   
   Building Technology and Urban Systems Division.   
      
   Another major benefit of ATES is that it will become more efficient   
   as weather becomes more extreme in the coming years due to climate   
   change. The hotter summers and harsher winters predicted by the world's   
   leading climate models will have many downsides, but one upside is that   
   they could supercharge the amount of free thermal energy that can be   
   stored with ATES. "It's making lemonade, right? If you're going to have   
   these extreme heat events, you might as well store some of that heat   
   for when you have the extreme cold event," said Nico.   
      
   ATES will also make the future grid more resilient to outages caused by   
   high power demands during heat waves -- which happen quite often these   
   days in many high-population U.S. areas, including Chicago -- because   
   ATES-driven cooling uses far less electricity than air conditioners,   
   it only needs enough power to pump the water around.   
      
   "It's very much a realistic thing to do and this work was really about   
   showing its value and how the costs can be offset," said Nico. "This   
   technology is ready to go, so to speak. We just need to do it."   
   This research was funded by the Department of Energy's Geothermal   
   Technologies Office.   
      
       * RELATED_TOPICS   
             o Earth_&_Climate   
                   # Energy_and_the_Environment # Renewable_Energy #   
                   Sustainability # Environmental_Science # Water # Weather #   
                   Environmental_Issues # Tundra   
       * RELATED_TERMS   
             o Renewable_energy o Solar_power o Hydroelectricity o Wind_power   
             o Climate o Desalination o Water_scarcity o Radiant_energy   
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Story Source: Materials provided by   
   DOE/Lawrence_Berkeley_National_Laboratory. Original written by Aliyah   
   Kovner. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.   
      
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Journal Reference:   
      1. A.T.D. Perera, Kenichi Soga, Yujie Xu, Peter S. Nico, Tianzhen Hong.   
      
         Enhancing flexibility for climate change using seasonal energy   
         storage (aquifer thermal energy storage) in distributed   
         energy systems. Applied Energy, 2023; 340: 120957 DOI:   
         10.1016/j.apenergy.2023.120957   
   ==========================================================================   
      
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/04/230405130132.htm   
      
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