Lu-Ve joins €3.4m geothermal research project

ITALY: Heat exchanger product manufacturer Lu-Ve is to participate in the €3.4m international research project EASYGO – Efficiency and Safety in Geothermal Operations.

The project, financed by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 programme, is focused on the development of geothermal electricity production technology.

Lu-Ve sees it as an opportunity for the company to deepen its knowledge of new technologies and enable it to further develop its Emeritus product line.

Emeritus is a cooling device, combining spray and adiabatic technologies patented and developed in collaboration with the Polytechnic University of Milan. It is said to achieve 400% higher performance than traditional dry ventilated exchangers, with significant energy saving and noise reduction. 

The leader of the project, directed by researcher Maren Brehme, is TU Delft (Delft University of Technology), the largest and oldest public technical university in the Netherlands, working alongside three other universities (ETH Zurich, RWTH Aachen and the Polytechnic University of Milan) and 10 international industrial partner: EBN (Netherlands), Fraunhofer IEG (Germany), Geo-Energie (Switzerland), Geophysica (Germany), Hydreco Geomec (Netherlands), Huisman (Netherlands), Nagra (Switzerland), RWE (Germany), Turboden (Italy) and Lu-Ve Group (Italy).

With geothermal energy set to play a key role in the energy transition process, how to operate geothermal systems as efficiently and safely as possible is one of the key challenges. The goal of EASYGO is to answer this question from different perspectives, integrating geology, geophysics, geochemistry, advanced thermodynamic modelling, and process engineering.

“Since 1986, ahead of our time, we have applied a policy of research, development and technical innovation with a particular focus on environmental issues. Today, more than ever, there is an urgent need to develop environmentally sustainable technologies that reduce pollution while maintaining high levels of efficiency,” said Lu-Ve president Iginio Liberali. 

“EASYGO represents an important opportunity for Lu-Ve, allowing us to deepen our knowledge of new green technologies that we can use for the development of our products.”