On 26 and 27 March 2024, the kick-off meeting of the ThermEcoWat project took place in France at the headquarters of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region in LYON.
The thermal socio-ecosystem, including groundwater resources, is subject to a number of risks related to the effects of climate change. The challenge for the thermal sector is to increase the resilience of thermal territories.
Members attending the meeting
The Thermauvergne association, leader of the ThermEcoWat project, has decided to work on this issue with 3 stakeholder groups from Southwest Europe:
- Scientists in the natural sciences and humanities and social sciences,
- Managers of thermal establishments,
- The elected representatives of the thermal territories.
The consortium is composed of the following 8 European partners:
- The Thermauvergne Association – leader – France
- BRGM, the French Geological Service – France
- The city of Caldes de Montbui – Spain
- Cartographic and Geological Institute of Catalonia (ICGC) – Spain
- The Province of Ourense – Spain
- The GEOPLAT association (specialist in geothermal energy) – Spain
- Les Thermes de São Pedro do Sul – Portugal
- The National Laboratory of Energy and Geology (LNEG) – Portugal
The kick-off meeting allowed the consortium members to get to know each other better and propose a strategy and working methodologies to better understand the territories, their quantitative and qualitative resources in thermal water, their energy potential related to this thermal water and the anticipation of our possible future vulnerabilities.
The objectives of the project
The first objective of the project is to move towards a new spa model, an engine of innovation for the energy transition of the territories.
The second objective is to strengthen the capacity of the thermal territories concerned and their thermal operators to make informed decisions (thanks to a decision support system) in terms of thermal water management and social, economic, technical and ecological development (investment options, savings induced by geothermal energy and new heat storage technologies, optimization of resources…).
The thermal sites involved in the ThermEcoWat project (France, Spain, Portugal) benefit from very different geographical locations and are therefore affected differently by climate change. This transnational cooperation at the level of South-West Europe should therefore allow thermal territories to benefit, thanks to exchanges, from additional knowledge useful for their thinking and their future strategic positioning.