DeepStor : Turning a Former Oil Field into a Giant Underground Heat Battery at KIT Campus North Published by Robert Buluma : | November 2025 Imagine storing the surplus summer heat deep underground and bringing it back up in winter to warm an entire research campus without burning any gas or emitting CO₂. That is exactly what the DeepStor research infrastructure at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Campus North is setting out to prove. From black gold to green heat The Upper Rhine Graben, one of Europe’s classic oil provinces, still hides dozens of depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs beneath its surface. Instead of abandoning them, the DeepStor team wants to repurpose one of these former oil fields as a high-temperature seasonal heat storage essentially a gigantic geothermal battery. Hot water (up to 130–150 °C) would be injected in summer when solar thermal collectors, waste heat from industry or even waste incineration plants produce more heat than needed. ...
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