Geothermal Engineering

Geothermal Engineering research at TU Delft was initiated in 2007 with the establishment of the Delft Geothermal Project (Delft Aardwarmte Project, DAP) , led initially by the geophysics section. At the moment research activities in Geothermal Engineering will be centred around the plans for a geothermal injector-producer doublet at the TU Delft campus. The doublet will serve as a national research facility and will at the same time be used to harness geothermal energy for heating. Specific research aspects of geothermal heat production that are important to the Netherlands include hydrocarbon co-production, injectivity decline (scaling) and evaluation of optimal breakthrough times and well patterns.

Our research focus is on understanding reservoir properties and processes to better predict and control performance. The enhancement of flow properties lies at the centre of our research in the two new European projects SURE and DESTRESS (starting in 2016).