Advantage Austria has awarded Extreme Light Infrastructure Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) project with Energy Globe Award Romania 2022, the Austrian Embassy informed.

The Extreme Light Infrastructure Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) project, which is currently the most advanced research infrastructure in the world in the field of photonuclear physics. The ELI-NP buildings are engineered and equipped according to the latest technologies, to the highest standards to meet the process and environmental requirements.

The running of the scientific equipment requires accurate specific conditions. Parameters such as temperature, pressure, and humidity have an important impact on the proper functioning of the scientific equipment, an important energy consumption being involved as well. The HVAC (Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) system is one of the core systems of the facility. The aim to design and construct the most appropriate and cost-effective HVAC system that serves the buildings led to the largest shallow geothermal system in Europe.

The shallow geothermal system is installed on a plot of 27.000 sqm, has a length of 135 km, and 1080 drills deep of 120 m each. The total installed thermal capacity is higher than 6.2 MW.

The shallow geothermal system provides the buildings with all the energy necessary for heating, ventilation, air conditioning, hot water, and technological cooling water.

The system doesn’t use fossil fuels as energy source, the main energy source for both heating and cooling (including technological cooling) is geothermal energy, equipment being powered by electricity. Thus, the shallow geothermal HVAC system installed at ELI-NP is environment friendly with low CO2 emissions, being as well one of the key factors leading to low energy consumption.