Swiss national project - Bern Storing waste heat from combined-cycle power plant

Concept

The pilot project in Bern aims to store waste heat from the nearby power generation site Bern-Forsthaus. The power generation site is operated by the local utility company Energie Wasser Bern (EWB) and contains a combined-cycle plant, waste-to-energy plant and wood-fired power station for electricity and heat production. For the pilot heat storage system an exploration well, ~ 500 m deep will be drilled to reach the Lower Freshwater Molasse USM. The goal of this project is to assess the feasibility of the ATES system and if the results are positives, to drill more wells to realize a fully functional heat storage system, which, in its final implementation is aimed to store lost heat at storing 7 – 10 MWth having a storage temperature of 120°C maximum.

The main drivers of this project are:

• Energie Wasser Bern (EWB) is a strong industry partner and the local utility company in the region of Bern.
• An increasing heat demand and a planned expansion of the existing district heating network in the city of Bern.
• The commitment of the city of Bern, owner of EWB, to support renewable energy technologies; to improve overall efficiency in energy production and to reduce CO₂-output into the atmosphere.

The Technology Readiness Level (TRL) advances to a maximum of TRL 5 – 6

Partners

EWB will subcontract Geo-Energie Suisse AG (GES) to perform overall project design, engineering and implementation and University of Bern (UniBe) to perform geochemical studies and supervision.

Status updates

• The Bern project was communicated to the public on October 18, 2017.
• The request for drilling and testing was submitted to the authorities of canton Bern October 19, 2017.