2025-10-28
Hot water injection experiment started
Today, the first injection with hot water began in the BedrettoLab’s geothermal reservoir. The experiment that is part of the BEACH project, aims to inject approximately 200 m3 liters of water over a period of ten days. The water used for the test is collected from the surrounding rock massif, heated to 80 °C in a boiler in the geothermal testbed, and then injected into the rock volume.
The goal of this experiment is to investigate how much heat can be stored in the crystalline rock and how much of this energy can be retrieved after a storage period of two weeks. The experiment is the first of two hot water injections tests.
During the injection, a low level of seismicity is expected and will be monitored closely by the seismology team. As an additional safety layer, a traffic light system regulates the experiment, and if the observed magnitude exceeds pre-defined thresholds, the experiment will be ended immediately and bleed-off initiated.