Two exploratory wells are being drilled in Litoměřice, Czechia, for geothermal energy

A drilling rig at the Jiříkov Barracks site in Litoměřice has begun drilling two exploratory wells for geothermal energy. The city wants to use heat from the Earth’s interior for heating and cooling. The wells will provide data for designing the construction and determining the number and depth of the main wells, which will be used to store and extract heat. The SYNERGYS geothermal project is expected to cost more than one billion crowns over the next five years. Trial operation is planned for 2027, project manager Antonín Tym told reporters today.

The exploratory wells will be 200 and 550 metres deep. As of today, the drilling rig has reached a depth of 29 metres. The work is expected to be completed in about a month. Experts will examine the samples as soon as they are taken. They will determine the composition of the rocks, the distribution of underground fractures, thermal properties, groundwater yield and the direction of water flow, which is key to the depth of the wells and their overall efficiency. „Groundwater can cool the storage system. It is therefore necessary to use special insulation. On the other hand, if some of the wells are used for cooling, for example in buildings, water flow is beneficial,“ said Tomáš Fischer, director of the Ringen research centre, which opened at the barracks in 2019. Heat from the wells could replace the burning of brown coal. Deep geothermal energy is, according to experts, a practically inexhaustible source of renewable energy.

Work began almost a year behind schedule. „For many months, we were unable to find a contractor,“ Tym said. The two wells will cost around 20 million crowns, covered by a grant from European sources.

Once the experts have obtained the necessary data, work will begin on drilling additional shallow wells at the barracks site. The most financially and technically demanding part of the project is the construction of two deep wells, which will reach three to four kilometres underground. They could supply water at temperatures of up to 100 degrees Celsius. Together with shallow heat storage facilities, which will instead make use of excess heat during the summer, they will function as the two main energy sources. They will be used by Energie Holding, which owns the networks and meets around 70 per cent of the city’s heat demand.

The Ústí nad Labem Region has included the SYNERGYS project, whose main aims are to use geothermal energy, build underground heat storage facilities and produce so-called green hydrogen, among other things, among the strategic projects approved for implementation under the Just Transition Programme. Costs are estimated at 1.25 billion crowns. „I am absolutely delighted. Almost twenty years of demanding and, in many respects, pioneering work, until recently accompanied by a certain lack of understanding of the strategic importance of geothermal energy on the part of both the state and the European Union, may finally be crowned with success,“ said Ladislav Chlupáč (ODS), senator for the Litoměřice area and former long-serving mayor. He was one of those involved in the original idea of using this renewable energy source.

Litoměřice is the only city in the Czech Republic authorised to carry out a special intervention into the Earth’s crust.