Inhaltspezifische Aktionen

KNW-OptII – Scalability of large-scale near surface ground source heat pumping and districting heating networks. Sub-project: Effects of agricultural land use

 

 

Short description

  

KNW-Opt II builds on its predecessor project, KNW-Opt, and aims to compile key findings on the planning, implementation and operation of large-scale collector systems with cold local heating networks – particularly for municipal utilities and planners. The aim is to significantly accelerate the scaling up of this technology. The focus is on Germany’s two largest collector-based cold local heating networks: Bad Nauheim and Soest. As part of this project, Work Package 4 led by John Clifton-Brown, involves field experiments at Bad Nauheim to assess the impact of the different crop types on the heat exchange capacity of the field, and the impact of subsurface thermal gradients created by the near-surface ground heat exchanger differences in heat gradients on crop performance. This work also examines how these thermal gradients influence soil conditions and their interactions with crop performance. Overall, these experiments aim to provide evidence of the costs and benefits of dual land use of arable field for both renewable Energy and Crop production.

 

This figure shows a thermal image of soil surface temperature taken with a drone. Overlaid are the plots for

winter wheat (WW) and Faba beans (FABA) and the measurement positions of soil temperature and moisture

profiles, net radiation and crop observation areas (quadrats).

 

Project duration  

May 2025 – April 2029

Staff involved 

John Clifton-Brown, Fawad Khan, Waqas Qasim

Collaboration partners 

Technische Hochschule Nürnberg

Georg Simon Ohm, Nürnberg

Stadtwerke Bad Nauheim GmbH 

Stadtwerke Soest GmbH

Smart Q Energy Solutions GmbH, Regensburg

heatbeat engineering GmbH, Nürnberg

 

Funding
Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz (BMWK)