Speaker
Description
The ULISSE project originated from the author’s Master’s thesis at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL, 1993–1995), which focused on CERN’s massive waste heat recovering to correct the winter temperature drop of Geneva’s drinking water network (CORSAIRE ‘free heating’ process, i.e. without a heat pump). A year after, this was linked to a sub-lake seasonal heat storage system (Lake Geneva) and presented (poster session) as a Contribution on the 10th General conference of the European Physical Society (EPS 10 Trends in Physics) in Sevilla September 1996.
Today, 30 years later, the basic concept, beside industrial waste heat recycling (i.e. air-conditioning, datacentres, etc.), includes solar energy and expands its applications and environmental objectives, such as protecting lakes from the harmful effects of Global Warming.
The ULISSE (Under Lake Infrastructure for thermal capture and Storage of Solar Energy) system/project aims to restore deep oxygenation and the circulation of nutrients vital to the ecosystem of large Alpine lakes under GW stress, as well as to save winter electricity for the surrounding Thermo-Lacustrine Networks (TLN) used for urban cooling and heating. As an example, the implementation of ULISSE, combined with the development of TLNs in Switzerland’s 15 largest lakes, would eliminate one-third (3 TWh*) of the projected national structural electricity deficit for the winter semester of 2050 (electricity to meet our needs for transportation, heating, and cooling through renewable energy sources, involves to phase out fossil fuels by 2050).
The exploratory study for the ULISSE project, selected between 77 proposals and funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE), was conducted at Geneva's University of Applied Sciences (HEPIA, 2021–2023). Today, the ULISSE project is in the process of forming a public-private advanced research consortium, followed by a full-scale demonstration pilot in 2030. The ULISSE Consortium is looking forward for partners who are conCERNed by Sustainability…
(3 TWh = 2 + 1 TWh from the winter “free heating*” (without heat pumps) of the public or in-building drinking water networks also outside lake regions)