Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage in the UK: current status and challenges to uptake

Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) has the potential to provide large scale, seasonal, low carbon heating and cooling to the built environment. Currently, heating of buildings represents 23% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. ATES could therefore be a key technology for the UK to meet its net zero targets, particularly as cooling demand is set to increase in a warming climate.

The potential for ATES developments in the UK is significant: it has a seasonal climate, and many major cities are underlain by suitable storage aquifers such as the Chalk beneath London, and the Permo-Triassic sandstone aquifers beneath Manchester and Liverpool. Despite this large potential, the uptake of ATES in the UK is limited, with only 11 installations over the past 16 years. 10 of these installations target the Chalk aquifer and 9 are located in London. In this study, we report the current status of ATES installations in the UK. A case study of an operational ATES system in the fractured Chalk aquifer in London is presented. Monitoring data over a 7 year period are used to quantify the performance of the system, with key metrics such as energy balance and thermal recovery being reported.

We also report challenges to uptake of ATES in the UK. Poor performance due to a lack of understanding of the technology is observed. Inadequate monitoring of the systems (temperature, flowrate) as well as large imbalances between heating and cooling loads are identified as key issues with some current ATES systems in the UK. The complexity of the UK aquifers is also identified as a potential challenge, as geological heterogeneity has been shown to lower system efficiency and increase the risk of well interference. Finally, a lack of awareness of ATES technology is also identified as a key barrier to uptake, so it is not considered as an option to provide heating and cooling to buildings by key stakeholders such as local and national planners and policy makers.  We report ongoing work to overcome these challenges.