Earlier this year, the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB) announced a EUR 20 million (£17.3 million) funding from the PEACEPLUS programme for the Geothermal Energy Momentum on the Island of Ireland (GEMINI) project. The project is supported by 15 partners from both sides of the border representing the local and national government, research sector, and community engagement groups.
The GEMINI project aims to deploy two shallow (<500 m depth) geothermal energy systems in the Sligo Regional Sports Centre and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive Centre of Excellence, Belfast and Northern Ireland Water, Belfast. There will also be a deep geothermal pilot demonstrator in the TUDublin campus in Grangegorman, where a 2 km deep borehole will be drilled.
Additional data will also be collected for potential future sites, thereby ensuring that the GEMINI work will have wider impacts for the island by increasing and improving knowledge of the sub-surface and Ireland’s potential geothermal resources.
This information will also help to inform new policies, guidelines and supports for the sector through geological heat potential maps, crossborder policy recommendations, toolkits for decision makers (homeowners, planners, developers and local government), community engagement guidelines, and business and skills development activities.
“Geothermal Energy is a readily accessible, always-on 24/7 source of renewable energy to decarbonise the heating & cooling sector. As part of the cross-border GEMINI project, Queen’s interdisciplinary research is supporting the development of a number of demonstrator sites across the island of Ireland to help build momentum for the uptake of geothermal energy across the island,” said Dr Ulrich Ofterdinger of the School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen’s University Belfast.
“Important partnership work has made this project possible, and I commend the partners involved for their ongoing collaboration with the public sector in the north. The public sector is our largest energy consumer, and I welcome GEMINI’s commitment to reduce its carbon emissions by unlocking our island’s deep geothermal potential and supporting our move away from imported fossil fuels,” added NI Economy Minister Conor Murphy.
