Geostatistical modeling of a shallow geothermal reservoir for air conditioning of buildings

Shallow geothermal energy, coupled to heat pump systems, is a growing technology to save energy and to store exhausted heat in the ground. Different models and techniques for systems design exist and are well known. Up to now, in the analysis there is a lack of probabilistic approach and the shallow geothermal reservoir is studied as a simple energy tank, whose parameters are considered constant in time and space. With this paper we propose to apply a geostatistical approach to reservoir characterization referring to the study of random components in thermal response test procedure and of variability of equivalent thermal conductivity of geothermal reservoir. The aim of the work is to underline and quantify the influence of natural variability on the shallow geothermal systems.