Geothermal Energy Systems and Applications

Geothermal energy systems exploit the heat stored in the earth's crust and subsurface soils, converting it into usable thermal or electrical energy through technologies ranging from ground source heat pumps and energy piles to large-scale enhanced geothermal systems that fracture deep rock to extract heat where natural permeability is low. Because the earth's subsurface maintains a relatively stable temperature year-round, these systems offer a reliable, low-carbon alternative to fossil fuel heating and cooling with a far smaller land footprint than wind or solar. Researchers are actively working to improve how accurately they can predict subsurface thermal conductivity and heat transfer behavior — measurements obtained through techniques like the thermal response test — since those properties vary widely across rock and soil types and directly determine how efficiently a system performs over decades. Open questions center on scaling enhanced geothermal systems economically, optimizing seasonal thermal energy storage to balance supply and demand across climates, and quantifying the long-term environmental effects of large-scale ground heat extraction.

Works

52,765

Total citations

415,297

Keywords

Geothermal EnergyGround Source Heat PumpRenewable EnergyThermal ConductivityEnhanced Geothermal SystemsHeat Transfer