April 2015, Hoogeveen, The Netherlands
WEP is glad to be part of the team that develops for the future provision of sustainable energy to the city of Groningen, the Netherlands. This sustainable energy will be in the form of geothermal energy.
Groningen is the largest city in the north of the Netherlands having around 200,000 citizens.
Groningen aims to be energy neutral in 2035. Geothermal energy is one of the selected methods to achieve this goal. Other methods are biofuel, geothermal storage (cold/warm) and solar energy. WarmteStad will be the public utility company to provide the energy in the future to warm the city. The target for first geothermal energy is set at 2017.
WEP supports the Gemeente Groningen with their sustainability project in providing technical planning on the subsurface. Drilling technology and subsurface is an expertise.
A sandstone reservoir at 3 km depth will provide the geothermal warmth. At this depth a temperature of around 120 degC is present.
