Home Best practices Underground thermal energy storage (UTES)
Nydalen Industrial Park, Norway
2004
Completed in 2004, in the Nydalen Industrial Park, the Borehole Thermal Energy Storage (BTES) was built in response to the Norwegian National Policy Guidelines, which requires the use of renewable energy in new buildings.
This system includes 180 borehole wells drilled to a depth of 200 meters and uses a series of groundsource heat pumps.
In total, it carries 6 MW of heating capacity and 0.5 MW of cooling capacity.
3 - the solution is identified as high strategic importance
3 - the solution is successfully implemented, and it has achieved significant environmental and economic benefits
3 - the solution has been achieved through a joint approach of more than 5 organisations
1 - the solution is replicable and/or scalable, but only limitedly so (e.g. depends on boundary conditions)
It is designed to heat and cool a school campus, hotel, and an assortment of commercial and residential buildings and now supplies 80% of these facilities' heating requirements.
Since it began operation, this BTES system has reduced the park's external energy use by 50%.
K. Midttømme, A. Hauge, R. S. Grini (2009), “Underground thermal energy storage (UTES) with heat pumps in Norway”
M. Lanahan; PC Tabares-Velasco (2017), “Seasonal Thermal-Energy Storage: A Critical Review on BTES Systems, Modeling, and System Design for Higher System Efficiency”