The owners of the Paris Orly airport, one of the two big Paris airports, have announced plans to meet a third of its heating needs from geothermal energy.
Two 1,700-meter deep shafts are to be drilled deep under the perimeter of the city’s Orly airport, where water heated by the earth’s core will be drawn upwards by natural pressure. When it reaches the surface, the water, at a temperature of 74 degrees Celsius, will be injected into the airports heating system. It will then be pumped back into the ground at a temperature of 45 C.
The Orly-Ouest terminal, part of Orly-South, the airport’s Hilton Hotel, and two business districts will be hooked up to the system from 2011.
After the results of a feasibility study, and the launch of the $17 million project in 2011, ADP (Aeroports de Paris) hopes that they will reduce the airport’s annual CO2 emissions by 7,000 tonnes from the current level of 20,000 tonnes.