The Canopus innovative directional steel shot drilling technology was developed for high rate of penetration low-cost cost directional drilling of deep geothermal wells. At the request of various customers in Europe it is now also being developed for the drilling of shallow curved Borehole Heat Exchangers (BHE’s) coupled to ground-source heat pumps.
In this research, the performance of curved shallow BHE’s was assessed theoretically in terms of energy output and economics. The energy output was simulated with Earth Energy Designer (EED) and FEFLOW. Curved BHE’s have a small surface footprint because they can be drilled from one central location rather than several spots throughout a field. Also, earlier results and literature showcased higher rates of extraction per meter of BHE (W/m). Significant increases in the energy output and decreases in LCOH were found in this research. The increase in energy output can be explained through the increase of background temperature and the lack of interference between the BHE's for the curved cases.