Location
St. Louis, Missouri
Date
04 Jun 1993, 8:00 am - 10:00 am
Abstract
Aquifer Thermal Energy storage (ATES) is a relatively new energy conserving technology which enables subsurface seasonal storage of freely available cold of winters and heat of summers for re-use in the opposite season. Thermal energy is stored in aquifers, groundwater serving as the medium of energy transfer. This case history describes an ATES installation for an office building in Ontario. Groundwater from a 10 m thick sandy aquifer at the 60 m depth is pumped from one pair of wells and re-injected, after extraction or addition of heat, into an opposing pair of wells. ATES technology not only conserves non-renewable oil and coal based energy resources used in the production of electrical energy, but also minimizes atmospheric pollution from thermal power plant emissions. The payback on investment is generally less than five years, for optimum weather and building combinations. The chemical and environmental impacts of ATES, however, must be fully understood, in addition to geothermal and hydrogeological aspects, to ensure a successful and cost-effective application.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
3rd Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
University of Missouri--Rolla
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 1993 University of Missouri--Rolla, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Mirza, C., "Case History of Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES)" (1993). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 3.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/3icchge/3icchge-session13/3
Case History of Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES)
St. Louis, Missouri
Aquifer Thermal Energy storage (ATES) is a relatively new energy conserving technology which enables subsurface seasonal storage of freely available cold of winters and heat of summers for re-use in the opposite season. Thermal energy is stored in aquifers, groundwater serving as the medium of energy transfer. This case history describes an ATES installation for an office building in Ontario. Groundwater from a 10 m thick sandy aquifer at the 60 m depth is pumped from one pair of wells and re-injected, after extraction or addition of heat, into an opposing pair of wells. ATES technology not only conserves non-renewable oil and coal based energy resources used in the production of electrical energy, but also minimizes atmospheric pollution from thermal power plant emissions. The payback on investment is generally less than five years, for optimum weather and building combinations. The chemical and environmental impacts of ATES, however, must be fully understood, in addition to geothermal and hydrogeological aspects, to ensure a successful and cost-effective application.
