The Value of Scotland's Legacy Mine in Renewable Energy Integration and Heating Decarbonisation

Flooded legacy mines across Scotland offer great opportunities for thermal energy storage due to their large water storage and natural insulators of rock mass. They will not only act as large-scale controllable electricity demands by importing otherwise curtailed renewable generation to heat water, but also supply carbon-free heating sources extracted from the heated water to households, business and public buildings. This will form a win-win situation that facilitates the integration of Scottish 20 GW onshore wind and 8-11 GW offshore wind by 2030 and decarbonises Scottish heating sector – the single largest source of carbon emissions in Scotland – via district heating networks. This 1-year Strath-wide project will develop an electro-thermal coupling system model to (i) evaluate the technical values of Scotland’s legacy mines in reducing the curtailment of renewable (especially wind) generation and replacing fossil fuel heating resources by 2030 and (ii) the corresponding socio-economic values in possible heating cost reductions.