Legacy BGS geothermal models: theoretical potential 'recoverable heat' for the early Carboniferous limestone (hot sedimentary aquifer resources) in northern and southern England

This raster dataset shows the modelled P50 distribution of the theoretical potential 'heat recoverable' (Hrec) across the northern and southern early Carboniferous limestone (ECL) in Great Britain (MW/km2), at a resolution of 2500 m x 2500 m. Hrec is calculated for resource temperatures greater than 50°C, which represents the minimum temperature required for direct use of heat from hot sedimentary aquifer resources. Hrec represents the proportion of accessible heat in an aquifer according to the USGS definition described in e.g. Muffler and Cataldi (1978). Its calculation is part of the research published by D J.R. Jones, T. Randles, T. Kearsey, T.C. Pharaoh, A. Newell (2023). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geothermics.2023.102649. Areas of high uncertainty are delineated in the published paper and the theoretical potential of the recoverable heat is presented with very high uncertainty .

Date (Publication): 2023

Citation identifier: http://data.bgs.ac.uk/id/dataHolding/13608362

Point of contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
British Geological Survey	Enquiries	enquiries@bgs.ac.uk	Distributor
British Geological Survey	Enquiries	enquiries@bgs.ac.uk	Point of contact

Maintenance and update frequency: Not planned

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

Geology

BGS Thesaurus of Geosciences

Limestone
Geothermal energy
Heat recovery
UK Location (INSPIRE)
Geothermal maps
Aquifers
Carboniferous

dataCentre

UK Location (INSPIRE)

Keywords

NERC_DDC

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Access constraints: no limitations.

Use constraints: License

Other constraints: Use constraints: this dataset is available to view under the Open Government Licence V3 ( https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/) to encourage its use and re-use, subject to the following acknowledgement accompanying the reproduced BGS materials: 'Contains British Geological Survey materials © UKRI [year]'. Some of the data shown in the BGS view-only service layers are available to licence. The licence cost will generally be a licence administration fee, depending on the usage type and the area coverage of the dataset requested. Companies and other commercial organisations with an interest in reselling BGS data or developing value-added products and services based on BGS data will need a BGS data resellers licence. For more information, contact digitaldata@bgs.ac.uk.

Spatial representation type: Grid

Distance: 2500 urn:ogc:def:uom:EPSG::9001

Language: English

Topic category

Geoscientific information

Geographic identifier: NORTHERN ENGLAND [id=151000]
British Geological Survey Gazetteer: Geographical hierarchy from Geosaurus 1979

Geographic identifier: SOUTHERN ENGLAND [id=158800]
British Geological Survey Gazetteer: Geographical hierarchy from Geosaurus 1979

Begin date: 2022

End date: 2025

Unique resource identifier: OSGB 1936 / British National Grid (EPSG::27700)

Distribution format

Name	Version

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
British Geological Survey	Enquiries	enquiries@bgs.ac.uk	Distributor

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link	https://ukgtp.bgs.ac.uk	UK Geothermal Platform Web Map

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link	https://ukgeothermalplatform.org	UK Geothermal Platform

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Other: dataset

Conformance result

Title: INSPIRE Implementing rules laying down technical arrangements for the interoperability and harmonisation of Geology

Date (Publication): 2011

Explanation: See the referenced specification

Pass: No

Conformance result

Title: Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services

Date (Publication): 2010-12-08

Explanation: See http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:323:0011:0102:EN:PDF

Pass: No

Statement: The study was conducted to assess the theoretical potential of geothermal energy from the early Carboniferous limestone (ECL) in Great Britain. The theoretical potential 'recoverable heat' (Hrec) provides an estimate of the fraction of geothermal 'heat-in-place' (HIP) that can be produced as thermal power (in kilowatts). It was calculated using the 3DHIP tool (Piris et al., 2021), which is based on the USGS volumetric HIP method developed by Muffler and Cataldi (1978). The values are theoretical due to lack of operational data for the UK. The method uses a Monte Carlo simulation to calculate the P50 probability distribution function for Hrec based on the P50 distribution of the HIP derived from the 3D geological model, gridded at an XYZ spatial resolution of 2500 x 2500 x 50 m. Hrec was calculated assuming a recovery factor (R) of 0.1, a plant factor (Pf) of 0.95 (proportion of time a plant is likely to be operating), a geothermal project lifetime (Tlive) of 30 years, and a heat exchanger conversion factor of 0.85. The original Hrec map (kW/m2) was converted into MW/km2 to homogenise the outputs as part of the 2025 UK Geothermal Platform project. The recoverable heat highly depends on the thickness of the limestone aquifer, which is poorly constrained in some areas. Recovering the heat from the whole thickness of the aquifer is not likely to be technically possible, so these values are high, theoretical estimates.