Ireland – Northern Ireland’s natural geothermal resources, thermal energy that comes from the subsurface of the earth, will be harnessed by an innovative new partnership between academia and industry to encourage the most efficient use of energy by industrial users such as data centers.
Causeway GT, Atlantic Hub, and Enisca will be involved in the Invest NI-funded project led by Ulster University. Working together, the group is looking for new ways to make industrial facilities more environmentally friendly.
All new renewable energy sources such as wind and solar will be considered in the project, while opportunities and obstacles to harnessing Northern Ireland’s geothermal energy resources will be examined. Northern Ireland has yet to take advantage of geothermal heat, which is used around the world to generate electricity and heat agricultural and industrial processes. Northern Ireland’s subsurface geothermal resources will be examined as part of this project, as will the conversion of geothermal energy to electricity, policy and legislation in Northern Ireland, and the potential for geothermal development to be accelerated.
It was decided that Ulster University’s Professor Neil Hewitt, Head of the School of Architecture and Built Environment, and Dr. Patrick Keatley, Lecturer in Energy Policy at Ulster University would lead the project, supported by industrial partners Atlantic Hub, Enisca, and project champion CausewayGT.
CASE and the industrial partners have contributed a total of £275,788 to this project, which has been valued at £275,788. It is funded by Invest NI’s Competence Center Program and aims to transform the sustainable energy sector through business research.
This project has three industrial partners. As the project’s driving force, the newly formed geothermal energy firm Causeway Geothermal will conduct research into how geothermal resources are disseminated, accessed, and harvested. As part of the overall project management, CausewayGT will also contribute to policy and techno-economic analysis. There will be a strong emphasis on energy efficiency and utilization in Atlantic Hub’s data center developments in Derry/Londonderry and Letterkenny. Engineers from Cookstown, Tyrone-based Enisca will assist in the design and development of prototype systems that may be developed after the DDCGE project is completed.
