Underground energy drilling proposals go to planners

MORE details have emerged about plans for temporary drilling and testing of exploratory boreholes to investigate underground geothermal energy potential in Antrim.

The Department for the Economy has lodged plans for well pads, as well as compound areas and associated infrastructure, site access, parking, ancillary development, general site works and site restoration at lands east of St Jude’s Church, Oldstone Road on lands to the rear of Abbey Farm, part of the Greenmount Campus.

A planning design and access statement has been submitted to the Planning department at Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council as part of a slew of documents about the scheme. The site area covers around 11.45 hectares.

The statement said that the Northern Ireland Energy Strategy (The Path to Net Zero), published in December 2021 recognises that geothermal energy has the potential to make a significant contribution to the decarbonisation of heat in Northern Ireland.

Alongside other renewable energy sources, it is envisaged that geothermal energy will play an important role in achieving Green Growth Strategy ambitions and meeting challenging net zero emissions targets contained within the Climate Change Act (NI) 2022.

The DfE 2022 Energy Strategy Action Plan has committed to delivering a Geothermal Demonstrator Project in line with the ambitions of the Energy Strategy (Action 16)2.

In June 2022, the then DfE Minister, Gordon Lyons, recognising the importance of ensuring that there is sufficient, locally available energy, announced that up to £3m of funding had been secured for this project. The proposed development has been designed to evaluate the potential and suitability of two locations in Northern Ireland to harness geothermal energy - at the Estate in Belfast and Greenmount - with the ultimate objective of unlocking private sector investment in geothermal technology.

The planning application relates to the Greenmount Deep Geothermal project.

The document said: “Geothermal is one of the most environmentally friendly ways of producing locally sustainable and renewable energy, as it harnesses the heat which is continuously produced inside the earth. It can heat and cool our homes and buildings, power our cities, support our industries, and empower our way of life.

“Energy is naturally stored as heat in rocks and waters within the Earth’s subsurface. Natural features in the rock beneath us allow hot water to move through underground structures and reservoirs and hot water has been circulating underground like this for millions of years.

“In the right geological setting, heat can be utilised at the surface by either pumping water to the surface as a direct heat source or, if hot enough, it can be used to create steam that can power a turbine and generate electricity. In most cases, low temperature heat from shallow depths is used by transferring heat from the rocks to a circulating fluid in a pipe, which can be extracted and further warmed using a heat pump.

“The heat exchange processes can also operate in reverse and transfer excess heat back to the subsurface, thereby cooling buildings.

“While geothermal technology has been safely and successfully used across the world for decades in countries like New Zealand, Iceland, Sweden, and Germany, it is relatively new and underutilised in Northern Ireland. Apart from the use of ground source heat pumps in some domestic and non-domestic settings, there have only been a small number of larger scale non-domestic geothermal based projects in Northern Ireland.

“The proposed development intends to prove that a deep geothermal system can provide efficient and affordable, heating, cooling and thermal storage to help decarbonise and reduce the cost of heating buildings not only on the Estate, but elsewhere.

“It is important to highlight that accessing geothermal energy is different to (and should not be confused with) fracking. Geothermal projects circulate fresh water in pre-existing pore spaces and fractures beneath the earth’s surface and once the heat has been extracted and used, the water is re-injected into the same formation to allow it to re-heat. It is a simple, clean, and well-practiced technology.

“Fracking, on the other hand, is where rock is deliberately fractured under pressure (from water, sand and chemicals) to enable gas to be extracted. It requires large amounts of water, can cause earth tremors, pollution and leads to the extraction of a fossil fuel (which exacerbates the climate crisis).

“The aim of this Geothermal project is to capture natural heat and use it as renewable energy, to assist with moving away from fossil fuel use.

The statement said that a Pre-Application Community Consultation (PACC) was undertaken to engage with the local community and key stakeholders in respect of the proposed development.

This consisted of a public consultation event at the Greenmount Campus, comprising two drop-in sessions from 12-2pm and 4-7pm on Friday 22nd November 2024.

The PACC public consultation event was advertised in the Antrim Guardian. Leaflets with information on the consultation were distributed to all addresses within a 200 metre radius of the proposed development site on week commencing 11th November 2024.

The leaflet contained details of the public event, contact details, how to obtain information regarding the proposal if the in-person event couldn’t be attended and how to provide feedback.

Individual consultations were held with elected representatives as requested.

Consultation materials were placed online on a webpage within the Gravis Planning website for those unable to attend the consultation event in person. Feedback could also be given online and through email.

The information on how to access the online consultation materials was provided on the leaflet sent to local residents.

The document said: “All feedback submitted by stakeholders who participated in the public consultation has been duly considered by the project design team in finalising the design of the proposed development.

“Of the feedback received through the public consultation, there were no issues raised regarding the design of the proposed development. Therefore, the proposal being submitted is unchanged from that which was presented for consultation.”

The statement continued: “The site covers an irregular area located along the A26 Oldstone Road and is currently agricultural land (grassland fields) that is not accessible by the public.

“The main entrance to the site is located at its southwestern corner and is accessible via an internal vehicular track off A26 Oldstone Road, which connects to the western boundary of the site. The site also contains an unnamed road located to the north west/centre that leads to farm buildings and connects to A26 Oldstone Road. Numerous trees line the vehicular access track and extend into the southwestern corner of the site. Additionally, several trees and hedgerows are also found to the northeast of the site.

“The topography of the site slopes gently downward toward Six Mile Water, the nearest watercourse, located c.200m from the northern boundary. The Six Mile Water drains to the largest freshwater body in Northern Ireland known as Lough Neagh, west of the site. No watercourses or open water bodies are present within the Proposed Development area.

“There are a number of minor water features/ditches present in general proximity, all of which drain to the Six Mile Water.

The wider local area surrounding the site comprises agricultural land, various facilities on the Greenmount Campus – including the teaching college and ancillary buildings – scattered domestic dwellings and farmsteads. The nearest residential property is the ‘Muckamore House’, an apartment building located c.190m to the north of the site. Some farm buildings, which are part of the Greenmount Campus, are located to the west of the site and next to the north of the access. The closest settlement is Muckamore, located c.200m north east.

“There are a number of listed buildings in the vicinity of the site. The area surrounding the site is predominantly rural. Ten woodlands, designated as Northern Ireland Priority Habitat, are present within 2km of the site. The closest local wildlife site is Clady Water which is approximately 5.2km southeast of the site. No other priority habitat is present within the 2km buffer of the site.

“Based on desktop data and on-site surveys, within the 2km buffer of the site, there are a number of protected and notable species present, including protected species of bats and birds.

“According to the DfI Flood Maps NI, the site is not within a floodplain. However the records show the presence of some surface water at the western end of the site.

“Site access would be via the A26 Oldstone Road and internal tracks within CAFRE owned land. Additional temporary access roads will be required to be installed to access the proposed development location. The A26 Oldstone Road is a Protected Route, which has additional planning protections to ensure that any permissions granted for new developments must utilise existing access points rather than from the protected routes themselves.”

In terms of the proposal itself, the statement continued: “The proposal is for a proposed well pad to support temporary drilling and testing of exploratory boreholes to investigate sub-surface geothermal energy potential including compound areas and associated infrastructure, site access, parking, ancillary development, general site works and site restoration.

“A location has been selected within the Greenmount campus for the drilling, lining and testing of two geothermal boreholes to depths of up to 1,500-2,000m. These will be drilled from a single drill pad and angled away from each other in the sub-surface. The development will be contained within a fenced off compound. The compound will consist of hardstanding, drill rig pad(s), wellhead chamber(s), borehole headworks, drill mud and fluids management facilities, storage and ancillary temporary offices/welfare/workshop.”

The main phases of development are site enabling works; rrill rig mobilisation; drilling and ancillary equipment establishment at site; the drilling phase; the testing phase (drill equipment may be demobilised before this phase); well-head completion and final demobilisation; and site restoration.

The statement continued: “The precise drilling rig specification will not be known until a contractor is appointed. This aspect of the works is subject to a completion of a procurement exercise that has not yet taken place. The drilling rig is likely to be between 30-40m in height. Where required, a working platform will be installed approximately 10m above ground level and the mast will extend approximately 20-30m above this. Other alternative, smaller or more compact drilling rigs will also be considered as they may simplify the scale of infrastructure that needs to be mobilised to site. A piled concrete pad may be required to support the drilling rig’s substructure depending on ground conditions at the selected location and ultimately the drilling rig selected to complete the works.

“As the proposal only involves the drilling of boreholes involving the use of mobile plant and equipment, there is no built development or permanent construction to consider or assess. Through a combination of the scale of plant and duration of the project, the visual impact of the proposal will be minimal and there will be no detrimental no impact on the landscape setting of the site.

“The proposed works at Greenmount are temporary in nature and comprise principally of the drilling of two boreholes. Access to the drill locations will be from the A46 Oldstone Road to the west which will then follow an internal road within the Greenmount campus.

“With the planned phased drilling and testing works, traffic to the site will be limited and typically comprise a few vehicle trips per day to and from the site, including the drilling rig. A new, temporary, internal access road will then be required to provide access the drill pad within the field location.

“Due to the nature of the proposed development, it is likely that there will be little to no effect on traffic, transport, walking or cycling routes in the surrounding area. However, to reduce any potential short-term adverse effects, good traffic management practices will be followed through the implementation of a an outline plan which has been submitted as part of the planning application.

“There is a good level of accessibility and transport infrastructure within the locality of the proposed development. The site is located to the south of Antrim, with good road infrastructure linking it to the wider region. The site is to be accessed via the A26 Oldstone Road, which links to the A6 Belfast Road to the north, providing linkage to the M2 motorway just past Templepatrick.

“Due to the nature and location of the proposed development, whilst the proposed works are being undertaken, access to the borehole locations will only be available to highly skilled authorised personnel only and not to the general public. However, the Proposed Development will, so far as practicably possible and in light of the statutory duty to make “reasonable adjustments” to enable access, be designed to ensure it is accessible to all staff members including those with disabilities or impaired mobility.

The document concluded: “Current planning policy at the National, Regional and Local level is strongly supportive of renewable energy projects such as this one, as they facilitate reductions in carbon emissions, helping to achieve Climate Change targets. This also allows enhancement of Northern Ireland’s security of energy supply while minimising negative impacts.

“The proposed Greenmount Deep Geothermal project is fully compliant with these policies. A combination of the use of small scale mobile plant and equipment, short duration of the works and appropriate mitigation measures will ensure the proposed development will not adversely impact upon local communities or the environment. In these circumstances, the Council is respectfully requested to grant planning permission for the proposed development.

A summary of an accompanying Environmental Statement said: “Various potential environmental impacts are expected to arise from the Proposal Development.

“Mitigation and compensation measures have therefore been established to effectively avoid, reduce or offset any possible adverse impacts.

“Once these measures have been implemented, most of the adverse effects will be mitigated and therefore are considered not significant.

“A residual impact in the context of an Environmental Impact Assessment refers to the effects that remain after the implementation of mitigation measures.

“In other words, it is the impact that potential persists even after efforts have been made to minimize adverse effects on the environment.”

The ES said that the proposal is for the drilling and testing of two deep geothermal boreholes, which will form a geothermal ‘doublet system’, which involves abstracting water from an aquifer through one borehole and re-injecting it back into the same aquifer through the second borehole.

Both boreholes will be drilled from a single well pad and will deviate from vertical, a technique known as directional drilling. This approach aims to achieve more than 500m of horizontal separation. If the well testing is successful and proves the presence of a viable geothermal resource, any future operational use of the wells would be subject to a new planning application in the future.

The construction phase is predicted to last for two to three months, testing could take between two and four months and decommissioning could last as little as two weeks.

The statement added: “If the drilling and testing indicates that the geothermal wells can be used as part of a geothermal heating/cooling scheme, then further assessment and design work would be required to explore how the heat resource could be directed to a local end-user.

“Once funding has been secured and planning secured, a heat network could be constructed. However, the construction of a heat network would be the subject of a separate planning application.”

The document said that a total of ten people attended a public event on the proposals at Antrim Forum.