EPFL champions energy geostructures

Energy geostructures provide a constant source of renewable heating and cooling in buildings and infrastructures and perform very well. Professor Lyesse Laloui, the director of EPFL's Laboratory of Soil Mechanics (LMS), has co-authored a new book that takes stock of the latest developments in a field where Lausanne leads the way globally. Researchers at EPFL have spent the past 25 years studying energy geostructures - a method that uses the earth's natural warmth to heat and cool buildings and infrastructures. Yet for all its benefits, the technology has yet to catch on: only around 1,000 buildings worldwide are fitted with energy geostructures, and 40 of them are in Switzerland. Here, we talk to Professor Laloui, the co-author of a new book that provides an in-depth look at the subject. The other co-author is Alessandro Rotta Loria, a former PhD student at EPFL and now an assistant professor at Northwestern University in the United States.  What are energy geostructures? Energy geostructures are heat exchangers installed in new building and infrastructures. They use the constant temperature of the earth's core to heat and cool a single structure or a group of neighboring structures. The idea is simple: heat is drawn from the ground to warm a building, and injected back into the ground to cool it. Energy geostructures are also incredibly easy to fit; all it takes is a few plastic pipes laid in the building's foundations, with no extra drilling needed, plus a heat pump with a lifespan of 15-20 years. Once installed, the system provides a constant, reliable, renewable source of heating and cooling - meeting between 60% and 80% of a building's energy needs. And unlike solar panels, they work around the clock and don't rely on the vagaries of the weather.  In the introduction to your book, you argue that the technology's time has come.