PhD position in techno-economic assessment and cost optimization for underground seasonal thermal...

The EU aims to have a net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) economy by 2050, with a 55% reduction from 1990 levels by 2030. Presently, heating and cooling represent around 50% of the final energy demand in Europe and are mainly supplied by fossil fuel-derived energy. A challenge for decarbonizing heat systems is the size of the seasonal mismatch between demand for heat and heat generation from sustainable sources. Optimizing sustainable heat requires storing large amounts of heat to account for seasonal supply and demand fluctuations. Various technologies have been proposed for large-scale heat storage in geothermal reservoirs, and low-temperature storage is routinely applied.
The EU project PUSH-IT focuses on extending storage temperature ranges to high temperatures. It is to showcase the full-scale heat storage applications (up to 90°C) of 3 different technologies (mine, borehole, and aquifer thermal energy storage) in geothermal reservoirs. It will develop, deploy and test heat storage for various configurations of heat sources, geological conditions, distribution systems, and market and legal conditions across Europe.

Within this project, the research team at Utrecht University (UU) will closely work with the team at Delft University of Technology (TUD). A generic and open-source tool will be developed first to simulate the techno-economic performance of storage (subsurface, TUD) and local heating systems (surface, UU). The tool should capture the dynamics of heat supply and demand, operational storage performance, techno-economic parameters, and uncertainties. The developed open-source tool will then be tested and validated with the project cases. The PhD position will focus on the tool development and optimization of levelized cost of heat and carbon emission reduction costs.

The position is embedded in the Energy & Resources section at Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University (under the supervision of Dr Liu and Prof Kramer ). He/she will also work closely with the scholars at TU-Delft and other project partners.