Zurich Airport wants to use ice age channel for air conditioning
An ice-age, water-bearing channel 300 metres below Zurich Airport could be the solution for emission-free heating and cooling of the airport buildings. It could serve as a heat and cold reservoir. Investigations are currently underway.
Flughafen Zürich AG is currently exploring an ice-age gully beneath the airport. It is 300 metres deep and around 30 kilometres long in total. As it is filled with water-bearing gravel, it could be used to store heat and cold in order to heat and cool a significant proportion of the airport buildings without emissions.
“By moving away from fossil fuels such as oil and gas, we are coming much closer to our goal of achieving zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040,” said Lydia Naef, Chief Real Estate Officer of Flughafen Zürich AG, in a press release. “Geothermal energy plays a central role in this.”
Together with IG Rinne, a consortium consisting of engineering consultants Geo Explorers, Sieber Cassina & Partner AG and E-Axiom GmbH, Flughafen Zürich AG is working on a multi-stage process to analyse the potential of the gutter as a storage facility. The results of the investigation to date are said to be promising.
If successful, Zurich Airport intends to utilise the channel as a heat and cold storage facility from 2026. It estimates the investment costs for researching the channel and constructing the wells at between 4 and 8 million Swiss francs, depending on the number of wells required. In addition, there would be development costs for pipelines and other technical measures.
The project is being funded and supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy as a pilot project, says Emanuel Fleuti, Head of Sustainability and Environment at Flughafen Zürich AG. “We are making all the findings available to the scientific community and can thus make a contribution to research into emission-free cooling and heating systems.”