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European Geothermal Congress 2019
Den Haag, The Netherlands, 11-14 June 2019
1
MUSE- MANAGING URBAN SHALLOW GEOTHERMAL ENERGY. A
GEOERA GEO-ENERGY PROJECT
I.Hermsa, G.Goetzlb, S.Borovicc, A.García-Gild, C.Ditlefsene, D.Boonf, F.Velosog, E.Petitclerch,
M.Janzai, M.Erlströmj, M.Kłonowskik, J.Holecekl, T.Hunterm, V.Vandemeijern, R.Cernako, B.
Malyukp
a Institut Cartogràfic i Geològic de Catalunya (ICGC) / b Geologische Bundesanstalt (GBA) / c Hrvatski Geološki Institut (HGI-
CGS) / d Instituto Geológico y Minero de España (IGME) / e Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) / f British
Geological Survey (BGS-UKRI), g Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM) / h Royal Belgian Institute of Natural
Sciences – Geological Survey of Belgium (RBINS-GSB) / i Geološki zavod Slovenije (GeoZS) / j Sveriges Geologiska
Undersökning (SGU) / k Państwowy Instytut Geologiczny–Państwowy Instytut Badawczy (PIG-PIB) / l Ceska Geologicka Sluzba –
Czech Geological Survey (CGS) / m Geological Survey Ireland (GSI) / n Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast
Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek (TNO) / o State Geological Institute of Dionýz Štúr (SGIDS) / p State Research and
Development Enterprise State Information Geological Fund of Ukraine. (GEOINFORM)
ignasi.herms@icgc.cat
Keywords: GeoERA, MUSE, GIP-P, shallow
geothermal energy (SGE), management, resources,
conflicts.
ABSTRACT
The MUSE project (http://geoera.eu/projects/muse/) is
one of 15 awarded project proposals under the H2020
GeoERA program that will be implemented from July
2018 to June 2021. GeoERA (Establishing the
European Geological Surveys Research Area to deliver
a Geological Service for Europe) is the largest
European research programme in the field of
geoscience, co-funded by the European Commission
via ERA-NET Cofund action in the scope of Horizon
2020. The MUSE project itself focuses on shallow
geothermal energy (SGE) in European urban areas. A
group of 16 geological survey organisations from the
EU member states and associated countries are
involved in the project. MUSE addresses the
investigation of resources and possible conflicts of use
and will deliver key geoscientific subsurface data to
stakeholders via a user-friendly web based GeoERA
Information Platform Project (GIP-P).
The assessment of geothermal resources and conflicts
of use will lead to the development of management
strategies considering both efficient planning and
monitoring of environmental impacts to feed into the
general framework strategies of cities such as
Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAPs). The
developed methods and approaches will be tested and
evaluated together with input from local stakeholders in
14 urban pilot areas. The pilot city regions are
geologically and climatologically diverse and have a
varying range of heating and cooling degree-day
characteristics, making the project outputs and shared
learnings relevant across Europe and elsewhere.
MUSE will adapt workflows to focus on local scale
investigations suitable for densely-populated urban
areas, where national heating and cooling demand is
generally highest, and which might represent the most
important SGE market in the future. The outcomes of
the project will represent a comprehensive collection of
methods, approaches and tools that could be transferred
to other urban regions in Europe and adapted by other
organisations.
1. INTRODUCTION
Managing shallow geothermal energy is
multidisciplinary topic and draws on many
geoscientific sub-disciplines such as geology,
hydrogeology, geothermics, hydraulics,
hydrochemistry, borehole and well design and
completion, geoengineering and geohazards (e.g.
karstic regions and shrink-swell-prone rocks).
However, it also covers wider issues related to energy
economics, environmental law and regulation, district
heating and cooling systems, and energy-
decarbonisation and land-use planning.
A significant body of geoscientific knowledge is
already available from numerous national and
international projects. However, these projects often
address only a few specific issues within the above-
mentioned topics or cover only single regions or a few
European countries. This leads to various and partly
contradictory methods and concepts to address
resources and conflicts of use, and to fragmented
strategies for managing efficient and sustainable SGE
use. In this context, it should be mentioned that even a
uniform definition of shallow geothermal energy is not
yet available for Europe as a whole.
At the moment, there is a challenge in efficiently
conveying geoscientific datasets on resources and
possible conflicts to the decision-makers (managing
authorities, planners, city administrations and
investors). In particular, the overall cumulative effect
of competing SGE uses can be difficult to assess from
Herms, I., Goetzl, G., Borovic, S., et al.
2
static geoscientific datasets like thermal conductivities
or expected maximum thermal capacities of SGE
installations. Therefore, MUSE is aiming to provide
valid solutions for identification of issues and
opportunities to enable interactive decision support
tools, methods and workflows.
The ambition of MUSE is to develop a comprehensive
and integrated set of methods, concepts and strategies
allowing for local-scale management of shallow
geothermal energy in European urban areas, which can
later be applied by other Geological Survey
Organisations (GSOs) or comparable entities in other
European cities.
2. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
The overall aim of the MUSE project is to support
methodologies and concepts for an efficient and
sustainable use of SGE in the urban areas for heating,
cooling and seasonal heat storage that can be
implemented across Europe. To reach this goal, the
following objectives have been set:
1) Identifying, summarising and developing state-of-
the-art methods including harmonised standards for:
quantifying the potential of SGE use in urban areas,
evaluating the cost-efficient geophysical exploration
and monitoring tools, assessing conflicts of use
associated with the open and closed-loop systems and
evaluating the efficiency and impacts of shallow
geothermal installations.
2) Develop strategies for efficient and sustainable use
of SGE in European urban areas by means of:
evaluating current regulation, identifying and
promoting prospective technical concepts and
summarising criteria, strategies and actions for
planning, managing and monitoring of SGE use in
cities.
3) Transfer of methods and integration into strategies in
the specific urban pilot areas across Europe in order to
estimate the resources for SGE use, monitor the thermal
state of the subsurface and assess and map the resources
and conflicts of use associated with SGE utilisation.
4) Disseminate shared knowledge by displaying spatial
output datasets via web-hosted services integrated in
the GeoERA Information Platform and other
dissemination actions.
5) Contributing to the overall GeoERA objectives by
knowledge exchange and interacting with other
projects of GeoERA covering overlapping and cross-
cutting aspects of SGE use in urban areas. Also
providing technical concepts and datasets for
implementing geoscientific knowledge related to SGE
use in the EGDI information platform.
MUSE will cooperate with active international projects
dealing with SGE use, and will build on outcomes from
accomplished projects such as GRETA (Interreg
Alpine Space), GeoPLASMA-CE (Interreg Central
Europe), ThermoMap (ICT PSP), REGEOCITIES
(Intelligent Energy Europe), SUB-URBAN (COST),
ESTMAP (H2020), and Geothermal4PL (EEA Grants)
among others.
3. PARTNERS
In total, 16 GSOs from across 15 European countries
(Table 1 and Fig.1) are partipating.
The different members of the consortium present
complementary levels of knowledge and experience,
important aspects to have a broad vision of the different
issues in the scope of the SGE and thus achieve the
objectives of the project:
14 out of 16 partners have already performed
national studies on relevant topics including
exploration, geoscientific modelling, resource
and conflict mapping;
some GSO also represent managing
authorities or perform consulting on behalf of
their local governmental authorities.
Table 1: List of participants.
PARTICIPANTS
COUNTRY
GBA
Geologische Bundesanstalt
Austria
BGS
-
UKRI
British Geological Survey (BGS
-
UKRI)
United Kingdom
ICGC
Institut Cartogràfic i Geològic de Catalunya
Catalonia (Spain)
HGI
-
CGS
Hrvatski Geološki Institut
Croatia
CGS
Ceska Geologicka Sluzba
–
Czech Geological Survey
Czech Republic
BRGM
Bureau de Recherche
s Géologiques et Minières
France
GSI
Geological Survey Ireland
Ireland
RBINS
-
GSB
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences
–
Geological Survey of Belgium
Belgium
GeoZS
Geološki zavod Slovenije
Slovenia
IGME
Instituto Geológico y Minero de España
Sp
ain
SGU
Sveriges Geologiska Undersökning
Sweden
TNO
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek
Netherlands
PIG
-
PIB
Państwowy Instytut
Geologiczny
–
Państwowy Instytut Badawczy
Poland
SGIDS
State Geological Institute of Dionýz Štúr
Slovakia
GEOINFORM
State Research and Development Enterprise State Information Geological Fund of
Ukraine
Ukraine
GEUS
Geological Survey of Denmark and
Greenland
Denmark
Herms, I., Goetzl, G., Borovic, S., et al.
3
Figure 1: Participating countries and the project pilot areas of MUSE
4. METHODOLOGY AND WORK PACKAGES
MUSE will pool knowledge on managing the efficient
and sustainable use of shallow geothermal energy in
European cities. This covers the uppermost tens to
hundreds of meters of the subsurface, and shallow
aquifers accessed by the geothermal schemes within the
0 to 400 m depth range. The project flow abides by a
process circle (Fig.2), which consists of the following
main stages:
Stage 1 covers compilation of methods and
workflows for providing key geoscientific data and
creating strategies for efficient and sustainable SGE
use.
The work includes the exploration and monitoring of
the subsurface, assessing, processing and mapping of
key data, as well as creation, evaluation and validation
of static and dynamic models. A catalogue of joint
methods appropriate for the wider range of
thermogeological characteristics of the pilot regions
will be created using literature reviews, partner
questioners and special technical working group
meetings.
The management circle also includes the legal
framework and regulatory dimensions, administrative
procedures, social dimensions and policies, as well as
aspects of land-use and subsurface spatial planning,
often using 3D visualisations of geospatial data.
Stage 2 of the project will focus on the
implementation of joint methods and workflows in
14 pilot areas across Europe. All of them represent
urban areas affected by different climatic and
geological conditions, legal settings, different supply
and infrastructure as well as different thematic focuses
of the proposed investigations. Using the compiled
concepts and standards will lead to interoperable and
comparable project outputs.
The project pilot areas, which are evenly distributed
throughout Europe (Fig.1), will act as the test and
demonstration sites for applying modern management
approaches strongly based on geoscientific data and
expert knowledge.
Stage 3, the final stage of MUSE, will cover a feedback
round from the pilot areas to the initially compiled
catalogues of methods, workflows and concepts.
Based on the outcomes and lessons learned in the pilots,
the project team will gather at a joint feedback
workshop, and will modify the preliminary collection
of methods and concepts into a final version for general
dissemination among other regions and institutions in
Europe and beyond.
Figure 2: Main stages of the MUSE project.
The development of the overall project is structured in
six work packages (WP) (Fig. 3) as follows:
WP1: Project management, internal communication
and general dissemination. This WP concerns project
implementation and reporting to the programme
management. It also will establish efficient decision-
making and implement quality control measures.
Additionally, this WP is responsible for disseminating
the project and its outcomes to scientific and
Stage 1
Compilation of methods
and workflows
Stage 2
Implementation
of joint methods
in pilot areas
Stage 3
Feedback round from
the pilot areas
Herms, I., Goetzl, G., Borovic, S., et al.
4
professional experts, local and national government, as
well as the general public.
WP2: Technical aspects of shallow geothermal energy
use in urban areas. This WP focuses on assessing
resources for SGE use in urban areas and possible
conflicts of use associated with open and closed-loop
systems. Best adapted methodologies for operational
monitoring of the performance and the environmental
impact will be identified. This will allow defining risks
and possible hazards due to inappropriate technical
concepts and operation.
Figure 3: Work packages scheme of MUSE project.
WP3: Management strategies and action plans for a
sustainable and efficient use of shallow geothermal
energy. This will focus on analysing the existing
regulation measures for SGE in Europe dealing with
technical guidelines for managing and with
environmental protection action plans.
WP4: Testing and implementation of developed
methods and workflows in urban pilot areas across
Europe. That means testing and implementing
developed joint methods of assessment and mapping
SGE resources (derived from WP2) in specific urban
pilot areas and case studies for open and closed-loop
systems. It will assess scientific methodologies and
workflows in order to allow comparison of different
kinds of parameters as a function of data availability.
This WP also includes the assessment and evaluation of
existing regulation measures and application of the
developed methods and management concepts (derived
from WP3). Outputs will include documented spatial
output datasets in the pilot areas delivered via the web-
based GeoERA Information Platform (cooperation with
WP5 and the project website).
WP5: Information systems, targeted communication
and stakeholder interaction. This WP deals with
dissemination of acquired knowledge. First designing
and testing an end-user-oriented display interface for
local authorities and other stakeholders for presenting
the thematic outcomes from pilot areas, and second
deploying publically-accessible web-tools for
displaying on the GIP-P the spatial datasets from the
pilot areas.
WP6: Cross-cutting issues and capitalising on
knowledge inside GeoERA, i.e. identifying existing or
possible conflicts in the shallow subsurface between
water supply, heat supply and mineral resources
extraction in urban areas with different geological
settings with other GeoERA projects, including the
Groundwater and Mineral Resources research areas.
Under WP6 the knowledge exchange workshops,
web conferences, and stakeholder communication will
be co-organized.
4. PILOT AREAS
MUSE has 14 pilot areas (Fig.1) located in 12 EU
countries. This coverage will presents to have a very
wide variety of case studies in different geologies,
geographies and cultures .
The geological and hydrogeological settings are
different in each pilot area: from sediments of the
Cretaceous, Paleogene, Neogene and Quaternary
periods (case of Warsaw agglomeration), Miocene fault
systems (pull-apart Vienna basin) or Proterozoic to
Ordovician fractured sedimentary rock aquifers
covered by highly permeable river terrace (as in
Prague), but there are some common similarities (e.g.
shallow urban aquifers).
Climatic conditions are also quite different between the
14 pilot areas, so they present a diverse range of energy
demands. Table 2 shows the values of Heating and
Cooling Degree Days (HDD and CDD) as a proxy for
the heating and cooling energy demand and loads for
buildings. As expected, pilot areas located in northern
Europe have a double value of the HDD compared to
locations in southern Europe and vice versa for the
CDD values.
Table 2: Preliminary Heating and Cooling Degree
Days estimation (HDD and CDD) for each
pilot area for 2017 (source: Eurostat)
Pilot area HDD CDD
Linköping, Sweden
4682
-
Bratislava, Slovakia
3152
-
Glasgow, Scotland
3054
-
Warsaw, Poland
3054
-
Prague, Czech
Rep.
2985
53
Aarhus, Denmark
2722
-
Ljubljana, Slovenia
2551
218
Vienna, Austria
2468
213
Brussels, Belgium
2440
17
Zagreb, Croatia
2396
196
Cardiff, Wales
2275
5
Cork, Ireland
2083
2
Zaragoza, Spain
1749
283
Girona, Catalonia
1733
228
Herms, I., Goetzl, G., Borovic, S., et al.
5
The degree of SGE use is also at different levels of
deployment or maturity across pilot areas considered.
Some pilot areas are in a very preliminary stage of
development with no knowledge about the number,
power and characteristics of the installed open and
closed-loop systems while other countries are already
well developed and concerned and working on thermal
interferences and the environmental impacts of SGE
use. Therefore, these is scope for all European countries
to optimise their developments with the benefit of
shared learnings from more experienced countries.
5. EXPECTED RESULTS
The outcomes of the project will be a comprehensive
collection of methods, approaches and tools, which can
be transferred to other urban regions in Europe and
adapted by other organisations.
Two catalogues will be elaborated: one of the evaluated
methods and guidelines on exploration, assessment and
technical monitoring of SGE use in urban regions, and
other of factsheets of evaluated and characterised SGE
concepts of use in urban areas.
From the WP3 analyses a report on the current legal
frameworks, procedures and policies on SGE use in
selected European cities will be produced. Guideline
for integrating and managing the use of SGE in urban
areas will also be generated.
From WP4 activities, it has been planned to obtain
documented thematic output datasets for web
presentation of selected pilot areas. The thematic output
datasets represent spatial datasets (GIS based vector-
and raster datasets as well as 3D datasets), which will
be compiled and transferred to WP5 for web hosting.
All datasets produced will be accompanied by
annotation reports, which will also be published on the
GIP-P related web platform.
Figure 4: Factsheets of the Pilot areas.
From pilot areas, a compilation of fact sheets including
the main findings of MUSE has been prepared (Fig.5)
to give an overview of (1) the current situation on SGE
use, (2) the outline of relevant constraints and impacts
of SGE use and (3) a summary of the activities and
results achieved. They will be updated and
complemented with a summary report describing the
outcomes in the pilot areas.
The WP5 will focus on the web platform related to
MUSE (http://geoera.eu/projects/muse/) and a Data
Management Plan for the specification of output data
formats, data types, attributes, expected semantics and
the description of required functionalities related to the
display on the GIP-P.
The guidelines on the delivery of geodata and
knowledge related to SGE to the GeoERA and the
guidelines on the use of the SGE web platform tools at
the GIP-P will be published to assist future SGE use in
urban areas outside MUSE.
Finally, an activity report on capitalising activities with
other project teams inside GeoERA will log and
summarise all major activities in overlapping pilot
areas.
6. DISSEMINATION OF RESULTS
A preliminary general Communication, Dissemination
and Exploitation Plan has been devised. This includes:
web services presenting output datasets at the pilot
areas and all the related geographical information
outcomes to be hosted at the GIP-P;
all output datasets produced in the pilot areas to be
hosted on the GIP-P, will also be accessible for
downloads as GIS datasets in a standard format.
For the general public, scientific community, local
stakeholders in the pilot areas, EU & national
stakeholders and the GeoERA group, a website and a
leaflet (Fig.5) will be made available. Also one
catalogue of evaluated SGE concepts will be completed
in order to raise the awareness on SGE for
decarbonisation of European cities.
Figure 5: Leaflet available at MUSE website.
More specifically for the GeoERA group, EU &
national stakeholders and scientific community,
different seminars and workshops will be held during
Herms, I., Goetzl, G., Borovic, S., et al.
6
which the web conferences and knowledge transfer
activities will play an important role.
The project Communication-Dissemination-
Exploitation Plan includes dissemination actions to
scientific and expert communities with a cumulative
research paper and presentations at conferences and
expert workshops. The guidelines referring to the SGE
use, adapting the joint methods, workflows and
concepts in Europe will comprise the list of tools
necessary for the dissemination of MUSE results.
7. RESUME
The MUSE project (Managing Urban Shallow
geothermal Energy) investigates resources and possible
conflicts of use associated with SGE use in European
urban areas and delivers key geoscientific subsurface
data to stakeholders via a user-friendly web based
GeoERA information platform.
MUSE will lead to the development of management
strategies considering both efficient planning and
monitoring of environmental impacts to feed into
general framework strategies of cities like SEAP’s.
The developed methods and approaches will be tested
and evaluated together with input from local
stakeholders in 14 urban pilot areas across Europe
which are representative for different conditions.
The outcomes of the project will represent a
comprehensive collection of methods, approaches and
tools, which can be transferred to other urban regions
in Europe and adopted by other organizations.
REFERENCES
ESTMAP: Energy Storage Mapping and Planning. EC
funded Horizon 2020 project
GeoPLASMA-C: Shallow Geothermal Energy
Planning, Assessment and Mapping Strategies in
Central Europe. INTERREG VA Programme.
Central Europe. European Union
(www.geoplasma-ce.eu).
Geothermal4PL: Support for Sustainable Development
and Use of Shallow Geothermal Energy within the
Areas of the Mieszkanie Plus Programme in
Poland. European Economic Area Grants. Norway
Grants.
GRETA. Near-surface Geothermal Resources in the
Territory of the Alpine Space. INTERREG VA
Programme. Alpine Space. European Union
(https://www.alpine-
space.eu/projects/greta/en/home).
SUB-URBAN TU1206 (COST Action). EU
Framework Programme Horizon 2020.
REGEOCITIES. Shallow Geothermal Energy.
Intelligent Energy Europe Programme of the
European Union.
ThermoMap: Mapping shallow geothermal potential
across Europe. (2010-2013). Funded by the FP7
ICT-PSP.
