To achieve its sustainability goals, the city of Antwerp is fully committed to district heating networks for the sustainable heating of buildings. However, not every location in the city is suitable for the realization of a heat network, for example because there are few nearby sustainable heat sources or because the surroundings are less suitable. Geothermal energy can often provide a solution in these locations.

Stored heat in the ground can be used to heat buildings via geothermal energy with a heat pump. In the summer, geothermal energy can also be used for efficient cooling of buildings. Typically, this concerns borehole energy storage or BEO in the Antwerp context (heat exchange with the ground via boreholes typically 100 to 150 m deep), but also cold-heat storage or ATES (heat exchange with the water from underground aquifers) is a possibility in some parts of the city. These are now well-known technologies that have been used for many years.

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However, cities and towns in our country regularly receive requests from building owners and developers to be allowed to use public space to apply geothermal energy, often when the space on their own site is insufficient. Today, the city of Antwerp does not yet allow these possibilities on the public domain. There are also various ways in which geothermal energy can be applied collectively on the public domain. For example, we think of a street where several neighbors without their own garden could, because of economies of scale, jointly install a geothermal system under their street and use it to sustainably heat and cool their homes.

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The city therefore appointed Ingenium to gain insights into the various technical, spatial, legal and organisational aspects of geothermal energy in public space. Together with partners D A (expert above and below ground construction of public domain), Xirius Public (legal expert) and AGT (expert geothermal energy), we will work on the basis of three concretely elaborated BEO example cases (one of which involves both BEO and ATES identify current possibilities, obstacles, concerns and opportunities. We do this in close consultation with the various city services involved, in order to get to work on the living concerns.

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The findings of this study will be used by City of Antwerp to shape the further policy framework and, where necessary, develop regulatory instruments, complementary to those already in place, codes and regulations.

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