immo!nvest – Die Plattform für Standorte und Immobilien

Tag: geothermische Energie

  • Underground facility to reduce CO2 emissions

    Underground facility to reduce CO2 emissions

    Flughafen Zürich AG is building an underground energy centre located between multi-storey car park 6, the Radisson Blu Hotel and Operation Center 1. The centre will be equipped with heat pumps and chillers with a total output of 12 to 15 megawatts. In the medium term, it will cover around two thirds of the heating and cooling requirements of the terminal and the surrounding buildings at the airport head. Commissioning is planned for autumn 2027, Flughafen Zürich AG announced in a press release.

    At the same time, the company is exploring an ice-age channel at a depth of 300 metres in order to store thermal energy there and make it usable again. The first well has been in operation since 2024 and a second one is being built. Exploration of the channel is being funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy.

    Together with the energy centre and a planned low-temperature network, the channel should save around 6,500 tonnes of CO2 per year in future and help to reduce CO2 emissions at the airport head by 35% to 15,900 tonnes per year by 2030. Flughafen Zürich AG aims to reduce its own CO2 emissions to net zero by 2040.

    “Technically, we are relying on innovative systems with our plan to decarbonise the infrastructure. The combination of heat pumps, seasonal energy storage in an ice-age channel or via geothermal probe fields and a low-temperature network allows us to significantly reduce the climate impact of heating and cooling,” says Guido Hüni, Head of Energy and Decarbonisation at Flughafen Zürich AG.

  • Switzerland has great potential for geothermal energy

    Switzerland has great potential for geothermal energy

    Switzerland has considerable potential in the use of alternative energy sources such as geothermal energy and in the underground storage of CO2. This emerges from a press release from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne ( EPFL ). Professor Lyesse Laloui from the Faculty of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering ( ENAC ) at EPFL was head of the research group on geoenergy as part of the Innosuisse Energy funding program, which ran from 2013 to 2020. Eight competence centers have been set up. EPFL played a leading role in the field of geoenergy. Laloui is the author of the chapter on this in the final report of Innosuisse.

    Lyesse Laloui sees great potential for the use of geothermal energy. The Swiss government has set the target for 2035 of generating 11 percent of the energy used for heating and cooling buildings from geothermal energy. Laloui assumes over 20 percent. “The project results show that this share could easily be doubled,” he is quoted in the communication. The possibilities of using geothermal energy to generate electricity were also examined. Laloui points out problems such as drilling deep without triggering seismic movements. “One day we will surely make it, but we are not there yet.”

    According to the Lalouis report, there are good opportunities for the underground storage of CO2 emissions in Switzerland, especially in the Central Plateau from Friborg to Zurich. Professor Laloui is quoted as saying that of the around 40 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent that are emitted in Switzerland every year, around 12 million could be stored underground.