Tobias Massier
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Geothermal‐driven Technologies for Passive Enabling of Urban Sustainability Solutions

Geothermal project – Title image
Period:
Since October 2020 (ongoing)
My role:
Lead Principal Investigator
Lead institution:
Partner institution:

Description

Singapore aims to reduce its carbon footprint. Renewable energies are a good opportunity to do this.
Due to Singapore's small land size, the most promising form of renewable energy is solar photovoltaics (PV).
However, it is expected that there is also a small geothermal potential, particularly in the north-eastern part of Singapore. The aim of this project is to provide insights on how to best extract and deploy infrastructure and expertise to harness Singapore’s geothermal potential for urban applications.

Part of the project is test drilling at two sites in Singapore. In September 2022, drilling started at the Admiralty site. In May 2023, the drilling was concluded at a depth of approximately 1100 metres, while drilling at the Sembawang site commenced on 1 June 2023.
The first findings of the drilling are promising.

Our press release from 28 July 2023 gained nation-wide attention and was published on page 1 of Straitstimes, one of the main news papers in Singapore.
Alessandro Romagnoli and I were interviewed live on “Singapore Tonight” on Singapore's top news TV channel CNA on the same day.
A few days later, the findings of our project were discussed in parliament.

TUMCREATE’s role in this project is to analyse from a life cycle assessment perspective what applications we can drive given the available geothermal resources. The applications to be considered are district cooling (e.g. of data centres/estates), district heating, desalination of sea water, and power generation. This analysis will be combined with a cost-benefit analysis of the possible applications.

Further information

Publications from this project

[6] Geothermal Development in South, Southeast and East Asia: A Review
J. Poh et al., J. Poh, H. Tjiawi, A. Chidire, B. B. Veerasamy, T. Massier et al., Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, Mar 2025, DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2024.115043.
[5] Geological Perspectives from the First Deep Exploratory Slimhole in Singapore
J. Poh et al., J. Poh, H. Tjiawi, W. Wu, A. Romagnoli, T. Massier et al., Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, Springer, Jul 2024, DOI: 10.1007/978-981-97-1257-1_169.
[4] Geothermal Energy-driven Electricity Generation Model for Singapore
A. Chidire et al., A. Chidire, J. C. S. Loong, B. B. Veerasamy, L. Yang, H. Tjiawi et al., Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, Springer, Jul 2024, DOI: 10.1007/978-981-97-1257-1_153.
[3] Heat Extraction Characteristics of Hot Granite in Singapore
D. Lu et al., D. Lu, W. Wu, A. Romagnoli, H. Tjiawi, J. Poh et al., Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, Springer, Jul 2024, DOI: 10.1007/978-981-97-1257-1_152.
[2] The First Deep Geothermal Exploratory Slimhole at Admiralty Lane, Singapore
H. Tjiawi et al., H. Tjiawi, A. Romagnoli, T. Massier, W. Wu, J. W. M. Lim et al., Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, Springer, Jul 2024, DOI: 10.1007/978-981-97-1257-1_151.
[1] Life Cycle Assessment of Green Hydrogen Production via Geothermal Energy-driven Electrolysis
A. Chidire et al., A. Chidire, C. Schifflechner and T. Massier, Proceedings of the 2023 IEEE PES Conference on Innovative Smart Grid Technologies (ISGT) Asia, IEEE, Nov 2023, DOI: 10.1109/ISGTAsia54891.2023.10372686.
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