Sustainable energy and waste company HVC supports municipalities and water boards as a partner in their energy transition and improving the sustainability of their waste management. One of their projects involves making greenhouse horticulture more sustainable by connecting the Aardwarmte Maasdijk project to a local heat network.
About the geothermal project
Growing flowers, plants, fruit and vegetables in greenhouses requires a lot of heat. Natural gas is often used for this purpose. This heat source can be made more sustainable by using geothermal heat. In Maasdijk, various geothermal projects were therefore launched. Once the projects have been completed, horticultural entrepreneurs will be able to switch from natural gas to geothermal heat and thus improve the sustainability of their operations.
To extract geothermal heat, two wells are required in what is known as a doublet-well system. Hot water at a temperature of around 85 degrees Celsius is pumped up via the production well. The heat from this water is extracted using heat exchangers and transferred to a local heat network. At a temperature of around 35 degrees Celsius, the cooled water flows through the injection well back into the ground. The local heat network distributes the heat to the greenhouses and buildings.*
To be able to develop three geothermal doublet-wells, Aardwarmte Maasdijk worked with HVC. In turn, HVC called on Vicoma to check the quality of the piping engineering. They also performed an on-site progress inspection during the work. *Source: More about geothermal heat | Aardwarmte Maasdijk
Role of Vicoma
The salinity of groundwater is around five times higher than sea water. It is therefore essential to use plastic piping in the pipeline network of a geothermal heat network. Vicoma subjected the design to a quality control. Vicoma also ensured that the isometrics used by the contractor were aligned with the installed piping. Finally, Vicoma performed a progress check during the work so that the client knew the status of the project at any moment.
Result
Thanks to Vicoma’s quality control, the design was further improved to achieve the best result. There was 100 percent alignment between the design and the work performed by the contractor. And with on-site inspections, it was possible to monitor the progress of the project and report to the client so that they were continuously updated on the status of the project. 95% of the piping is now connected and the geothermal station is nearly operational.
