Untangling the Regulatory Barriers for High-Temperature Underground Thermal Energy Storage within the PUSH-IT Project

The EU-funded project PUSH-IT (Piloting
Underground Storage of Heat In geoThermal
reservoirs) is piloting the implementation of high-
temperature thermal energy storage in aquifers (HT-
ATES), boreholes (HT-BTES) and mines (HT-MTES).
The project will implement and test the potential for
thermal storage at higher temperatures in six pilot sites
(three demonstrator and three follower sites; two per
technology) located in four countries: the Netherlands,
Germany, the Czech Republic and the United
Kingdom.
As with other new technologies, the widespread
implementation and use of HT-UTES face a variety of
scientific and social challenges that delay market
uptake and implementation, including a lack of targeted
regulation, uncertainty about the environmental
impacts of high temperature storage and a lack of
awareness about the new technology among the public,
developers and policy maker.
In this paper, we present an analysis of current
regulatory frameworks and approaches applied to the
three HT-UTES technologies in the countries and sites
represented in the PUSH-IT project. The analysis is
based on literature studies and semi-structured
interviews aimed at collecting direct experience of
project stakeholders, including developers, operators,
regulators and authorities