3D thermo-hydro modeling and real-time monitoring for a geothermal system in Torino, Italy

This paper describes a comprehensive research study carried out in Torino, Italy with reference to the 166 m high Intesa Sanpaolo Tower, under construction in the city. The tower was designed as a “bioclimatic building”, where energy consumption is optimized with a coupled system of heat pump and geothermal wells, which consists in pumping water from the aquifer and in returning it back following air conditioning of the building. The possible interferences of the new geothermal system with similar, however significantly smaller, systems in the near vicinity and in the city, had to be analyzed. To this end the study comprised: (a) large scale water pumping tests; (b) large scale water flow and heat transport tests with real-time monitoring of temperature and water level in the vicinity of a geothermal well, with water being returned to the aquifer; (c) thermo-hydraulic modeling of the above tests, by using the FEFLOW software package. The most attention was given to the coupling of the monitoring data available through the tests and the modeling of fluid flow and heat transport processes, in view of predictive analysis of the geothermal system behavior versus time.