DIG (De-risking Ireland’s Geothermal energy potential) is a major new geothermal energy research project awarded to researchers at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and collaborators and is funded by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) and Geological Survey Ireland under the SEAI Research, Development & Demonstration Funding Programme 2019.
The project aims to investigate Ireland’s geothermal potential using a wide range of geophysical and geological techniques and from an island wide to local scale approach.
The key aims are:
- Determining the regional geothermal gradient in Ireland using new and existing geophysical, geochemical and petrophysical datasets.
- Investigating the thermo-chemical crustal structure and secondary fracture porosity within the Munster Basin using wide-angle seismic, gravity and geochemical data.
- Identifying and assessing the available low-enthalpy geothermal resources at reservoir scale in the Munster Basin, i.e., Mallow warm springs, by joint interpretation of magnetotellurics and passive seismic modelling results together with structural geology and hydrochemistry results.
