Bedrock heat is a form of renewable energy that plays an important role for our ambition to create a more sustainable society.  Heat that floats beneath the ground can be heat exchanged with a bedrock pump so the energy can be used in our daily life.

This procedure comes with two big issues. The first problem is that the fluid that’s used to exchange heat under the ground leaks and blends with the ground water. This has been solved and the solution to that problem was a capsule developed by Pemtec AB outside Borås that surrounds the collectors to prevent this to happen. The other problem that hasn’t been solved yet is the cooling effect that freezes the area around the hole, which means in the long run that the temperature inside the hole decreases and the bedrock potential is held back.  This is what our bachelor thesis is about.

We will simulate a bedrock hole with COMSOL Multiphysics and see what we can do to prevent the temperature inside the hole to decrease. We will for example try to combine solar energy together with bedrock heat to reload the temperature during the summer.  And also see what changes that can do for the usage of bedrock heat.