Drilling for geothermal – research at Utrecht, Netherlands

View over Utrecht from the Cathedral (source: flickr/ Thomas van de Weerd, creative commons)

Within a few years, a research drilling will take place in the municipality of Utrecht, De Bilt or Zeist to collect data about the possibilities of geothermal heat as a source of sustainable energy.

The location for this will be east of the city of Utrecht, but where exactly is not yet known.

The drilling will be carried out by Energie Beheer Nederland (EBN). This is a research project for future geothermal energy projects in the rest of the Netherlands. That is why EBN’s eye fell on this location. Different types of earth layers lie on top of each other here. A spokesperson for EBN: “This is a good area for a first drilling, because here we can drill many different layers at once that are also present in the rest of the Netherlands. This way you can quickly collect a lot of data. That is why we ended up here.”

By using geothermal energy, it may well be possible in the future to heat homes sustainably. With the results of the drilling, EBN wants to lower the threshold for energy companies to invest in geothermal energy.

For the project in Utrecht, drilling will be done to a depth of approximately three kilometers. The derrick is thirty meters high and the drilling is done by a kind of pile driver with screw piles. This requires an area of ??approximately two football fields. The study will take six months to a year.

The municipality of Utrecht has stated in a letter to the council that it does not expect drilling to start before 2023. The trial is therefore really only intended for research: the installation is not suitable for supplying homes with geothermal heat. Three other projects that focus on geothermal energy are already underway in the region.

Source: RTV Utrecht