Wait… the entire United States has only two ATES systems? How is that even possible in 2025?

Wait… the entire United States has only two ATES systems? How is that even possible in 2025?

I came across an article today in Inside Climate News this week that described an amazing new Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) in St. Paul, Minnesota. Taking advantage of a shallow geothermal aquifer, the new system will deliver highly energy efficient cooling and heating to 850 homes and several light-industrial buildings.

ATES does this by storing waste heat from summer cooling in the aquifer, for recovery to meet heat demand in the winter.

The article (linked in the comments) contains two further surprises – at least for me.

First off, the original investigation drilling for ATES, completed 10 miles away from the new development, was done 45 years ago!

That’s well beaten by the second surpise. In referring to an article on ATES policy, Iearnt that there are only two ATES systems in the USA (see second link in comments)!

In my view, ATES and its closed loop cousin, Borehole Thermal Energy Storage (BTES), have huge potential in Causeway’s focus markets, the UK and Ireland. Now I know that there is a huge market in the US, I can now see there is a huge technology transfer opportunity from Europe/UK to the US.

All very surprising to me, because I have held the US as world leaders in geothermal heating and cooling, second only to China.

Illustrative I think of just how much scaling up opportunity remains in the geothermal sector, in all its facets.

#energytransition #geothermal #utes #ates #btes #heatishalf #energytrifecta