Shallow Geothermal Potential Impact on the Energy Transition. A Case Study Region of Murcia, Spain

Abstract

Nowadays, it can be assured that climate change represents an environmental danger for the planet with irreparable and unpredictable consequences in case both gas emissions as well as fossil fuel dependency does not go down.Population growth and its increasingly concentration in the cities turn these areas into a major consumer of energy, mainly due to the residential and service sector in order to meet the heating and cooling demand. In this scenario of taking advanced of renewable local resources shallow geothermal energy is presented as a renewable resource that can contribute to meet this demand with high energy and gas emissions savings.In this context, this work shows the art-of-state of the energy transition to a renewable energy society in Spain by means of the use of shallow geothermal energy. It proposes a procedure to transform the current fossil fuel consumption into renewable heating and cooling by the use of Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHP). The methodology used is based on Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and is applied in Murcia Region, Spain. Positive results concerning gassavings emissions are expected converting shallow geothermal energy as an energy transition ally