Dear Participant,

Thank you for your interest in and contribution to the nGEL project.

The purpose of this survey is to understand participants’ awareness, knowledge, and perceptions of geothermal energy and its potential environmental, economic, and social benefits, as well as related health and safety considerations.

Your contribution is valuable. By sharing your knowledge, opinions, and perspectives, you will help the nGEL project better understand current awareness and perceptions of geothermal energy and flexible trigeneration technology. Your feedback will support the project’s assessment and communication activities.

There are no right or wrong answers. Please respond based on your current knowledge and personal opinions. Participation is voluntary, and the survey will take approximately 5–10 minutes to complete.

Project Description

The nGEL project (Next generation flexible trigeneration geothermal ORC plant) has been awarded under the Horizon Europe programme, call HORIZON-CL5-2023-D3-02-06 (Energy Supply). The project runs for four years: from June 2024 until May 2028. The main ambition of this project is to transform conventional geothermal Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) power plants into flexible tri-generation facilities that can efficiently and cost-effectively respond to the dynamic demand for power, heating and cooling, turning geothermal energy into a dispatchable resource that helps stabilise grids with high shares of intermittent renewables.

Objectives

A flexible, cost-efficient geothermal plant needs to overcome the present limitations of conventional, electricity-only ORC operation. Therefore, the nGEL project aims to achieve the following objectives:

1. Transform a geothermal ORC plant into a flexible tri-generation plant able to deliver power, heating and cooling on demand.
2. Increase the reliability and efficiency of the ORC plant under high ambient temperatures by integrating an absorption chiller and cold thermal energy storage.
3. Add thermal and cold thermal energy storage so the plant can decouple production from demand and provide dispatchable, grid-balancing output.
4. Integrate a smart energy management system (EMS) and an AI-driven Digital Twin to optimise plant operation and flexibility.

Outcomes

Achieving these objectives is expected to come with the following outcomes for the project:

• Increase the flexibility and dispatchability of geothermal plants, helping to balance grids with high shares of variable renewables.
• Improve the geothermal business case by adding valuable heating and cooling products alongside electricity.
• Deliver additional heat and cooling to local networks, displacing natural gas and reducing dependence on imported fossil fuels (EU-wide potential of around 215 TWh of heat per year – roughly 4% of EU heat demand – and around €9.6 billion per year in avoided gas imports).
• Realise a smaller CO₂ footprint and higher overall resource efficiency from existing geothermal resources.