Possibili impieghi applicativi della risorsa geotermica nell’ambito dei lavori di realizzazione e dell’esercizio della Galleria di Base del Brennero. Fase 1. Redazione di n°3 proposte di azioni preliminari da sottoporre al Progetto Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) “SWIFTLY GREEN - Sweden-Italy Freight Transport and Logistics Green Corridor”, come casi pratici di integrazione e armonizzazione dello studio e dello sfruttamento della risorsa geotermica all’interno del Corridoio Europeo Svezia – Italia, e loro potenziale replicabilità volta a favorire lo sviluppo di Corridoi Verdi Europei.

The aim of the present work is to investigate the potential geothermal energy exploitation in the BBT Italian tunnel system. In particular, the specific objectives of the work are: • The evaluation of potential geothermal resource, exploitable from the entire mountain area interested by the infrastructure. • The evaluation of potential geothermal reserve, in relation to its application as energy supply for the different energy users located in the nearby territories. • The definition of the possible ways of energy extraction from the tunnels, and the associated preliminary quantification of power and energy exploitable, according also to environmental regulations and limits. The work was developed in the months of June and July 2015; the data acquisition was divided in the following steps: • Bibliographic study of similar energy geostructures projects and collection of related technical documentation. • Acquisition of technical documentation about the current project of the BBT tunnel system. • Acquisition of geographical, geological, hydrogeological and climate data of the interested zone. • Acquisition of urban and energy plans of municipal areas and villages located in the area Bressanone – Fortezza – Val di Vizze. • Collection of new temperature measurements on site, by the use of an infrared thermometer. • On site visits and gathering information about local energy users located near the access tunnels portals. The different activities included data analysis to evaluate the underground temperature values and the preliminary calculations on energy extraction potential from different geoenergy structures and natural geothermal sources. In particular: • Geographical, geological, hydrogeological and climate data were used to create a 3D Temperature Mountain Mapping model of the investigated area. The geostatistical tool of the “Universal Kriging” was adopted for the temperature estimation and for the evaluation of the related precision. • Technical documentation from BBT allowed a preliminary quantification of the effective possibilities of geothermal energy extraction, in both open loop (drainage water thermal utilisation) and closed loop (geothermal energy lining) configurations. The analytical design methods, defined in international technical norms, were adopted to calculate the preliminary values of needed piping length and related exploitable geothermal energy amount. • Urban and energy plans of the investigated area were employed to illustrate the possible energy users, to identify the existent energy grids and to provide a preliminary idea of the heating infrastructure needed to link users to future BBT energy tunnel system. Finally, the replicability and transferability potential of each solution identified for the BBT Italian tunnel system to other similar infrastructure projects was analysed in order to provide preliminary guidelines for stakeholders and partners of SWIFTLY GREEN EU Project. The work led to the realisation of three factsheets, summarising three new solutions for evaluating and exploiting geothermal energy from tunnels.