Overview
The main purpose the Shallow Geothermal Energy Observatory of Catalonia is to provide updated and georeferenced information about the implementation state of shallow geothermal energy systems in Catalonia. Knowing how much energy is produced by shallow geothermal resources will allow to quantity and foresee how this renewable energy resource could contribute to the decarbonisation of our economic model. On the other hand, knowing the specific characteristics of each geothermal installation allow promoting the utilisation of geothermal energy as well as bringing potential users closer to this technology and its functionality.
Utilisation of shallow geothermal energy is increasing and it is being promoted both by public and private sectors. However, an official registration of this type of systems still does not exist in Catalonia; therefore, The Observatory through the BdIGSCat database is a starting point of visualisation of shallow geothermal energy installations in Catalonia.
Different equipment and drilling detail
Information in this database is continuously updated with the newest data collected both from public and private sectors. Each geothermal installation registered in the database collects data about the building typology (private or public), technical characteristics of heat exchangers, energy collection field, how generated energy is used and total energy production potential.
The database was developed by ICGC within GeoEnergia project (Geothermal resources of Catalonia) with the support from Catalan Institute of Energy (ICAEN) and Catalan Agency of Water (ACA) and in collaboration with the Cluster de l'Energia Eficient de Catalunya (CEEC) team.
Last update of data: February 2024
The information compiled from the data collected from Shallow Geothermal Energy Observatory of Catalonia and the BdIGSCat is consultable through the Geoindex-Surface geothermal viewer, which includes two layers of information: the location and the main characteristics of the facilities promoted by the public sector and a Counting by municipality of the installations promoted by the private sector on the update date.
→ Inventory of surface geothermal installations in the public sector (128 records)
Shallow geothermal data
The information in the BdIGSCat database presents synthesized information of the installed (or in project phase) thermal power attained from geothermal heat pumps which are producing air for conditioning or sanitary hot water (SHW) in Catalonia at the date of data actualization.
According to inventory of February 2024, the BdIGSCat database consists of 950 records, corresponding to different types of shallow geothermal installations distributed throughout the territory of Catalonia. Table 1 shows the summary of the thermal power distribution by type of heat exchange system.
(*) This corresponds to the term "known thermal power" which refers to real and proven data of the installed geothermal pump.
(**) This corresponds to the term "estimated thermal power" which refers to the data inferred from the total length of the heat exchangers of the geothermal field when the data of the installed ground-source heat pumps is unkown.
Status charts
The following graphs show the most relevant data included in the BdIGSCat database of shallow geothermal energy installations in Catalonia in August 2021. Data can be filtered by provinces, regions and municipalities by activating and deactivating the corresponding cells within the data selectors. Charts are dynamically updated.
- In Catalonia, 69% of shallow geothermal heat pump installations have an installed thermal power less than or equal to 30 kWt (Fig. 01). 13% correspond to installations between 30 and 70 kWt and only 5% of installations have installed thermal power between 70 and 100 kWt. 12% of the facilities have installed power between 100 and 500 kWt. Only 9 installations throughout Catalonia have installed thermal power over 500 and 5000 kWt.
- Even public sector has only 14% of total geothermal heat pump installations, the total thermal power installed in this sector is 31,3 MWt (Fig. 02). Whereas in the private sector with significantly much number of installations up to 78%, the total thermal power installed in this sector is 31,4 MWt.
- Vertical closed loop geothermal systems are the type of heat exchange scheme predominant in Catalonia for air conditioning and sanitary hot water production (SHW) and corresponds to 97% of all geothermal installations (Fig. 03).
- According to BDIGSCat database there is a progressive increase of shallow geothermal energy installations and consequently a progressive increase in the total MWt installed (Fig. 04), a progressive increase in total MWt is observed from the 30,3 MWt inventoried in July 2019 to the 64,3 MWt inventoried in February 2024. The annual growth is around 20% on average in recent years.
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