Join in shaping the regional heat transition

The GECKO project aims to test a new approach of infrastructure planning for the production and use of renewable energy that better meets society’s expectations regarding a higher degree of transparency and possibilities for participation than in the procedures frequently used in the past. The purpose of GECKO is to show how infrastructure projects for a climate-neutral energy supply can be better aligned with societal demands. GECKO will experimentally work out how to develop and apply evaluation criteria and scenarios for the use of deep geothermal energy in close cooperation between scientists, citizens, and stakeholders.

This will be done at the site of the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT) Campus North, which is characterized by one of the largest known heat anomalies in Germany with about 170°C at a depth of 3 km. Building on the results of the inter- and transdisciplinary research, a feasibility concept for the use of deep geothermal energy for a climate-neutral heat supply of one of the largest research institutions in Europe will be developed.

The GECKO project consists of three sub-projects. While the GeoEnergy Group of KIT carries out the scientific and engineering analyses, the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) at KIT and the Öko-Institut e.V. examine the social science aspects. For this purpose, workshops with actors from the realm of practice and expert interviews are carried out at the local level to identify evaluation criteria and to develop scenarios for the use of deep geothermal energy at the KIT Campus North site. This allows setting priorities and introducing topics that are not represented in the classical scientific approaches. The findings from this project will be scientifically evaluated and made available to KIT and the municipalities interested in a renewable heat supply as well as to decision makers in politics and industry.