Achievements
With the help of Stichting DAP, over the past four years the topic of geothermal energy has grown considerably within the Department of GSE at the TU Delft. The Geothermal group at the TU expanded with 3.5 additional postdocs and 3 PhD students. Moreover, the number of MSc students working on geothermal thesis topics has gone up from one in 2013/14 to six in 2016/17. Notably, TU Delft now participates in:
• Two major geothermal EU projects funded within Horizon 2020 programme framework.
• A Dutch Government supported project in Indonesia
• A project funded by EBN (on the synergy potential of oil, gas and geothermal energy)
In financial terms, each Euro donated by sponsors to the Stichting DAP and to the establishment of the Chair of Geothermal Engineering has been quadrupled since October 2013. The visibility of the geothermal topic has increased within the TU Delft, in the province of Zuid-Holland and the entire country. The TU Delft has become a veritable player within the European geothermal research community (TU Delft became participant in the joint programme on geothermal energy of the EERA – European Energy Research Alliance, which unites 35 academic institutions from 13 countries). This development shows the impact of past DAP sponsor fundings, and highlights the importance of finding additional sponsor funds.