The Cheshire Energy Research Field Site will be developed along with a Glasgow Energy Research Field Site. Together they will underpin the development of energy technologies and advance our understanding of the underground environment — one that modern society uses extensively for water, pipelines, tunnels, building materials, landfill, drainage and more.

The Cheshire Energy Research Field Site will attract world-leading geologists, engineers and other scientists to undertake energy-related research. This research will advance our understanding of the technologies and science needed for carbon storage, energy storage, underground storage of waste material and shale gas.

Ince Marshes is located at the very heart of Cheshire’s Energy Hub — with the wind farm, refinery, energy research centre, mixed-use energy development and the hydrogen cluster as neighbours. The UK Geoenergy Observatories will build on Cheshire’s standing as an energy hub and strengthen this corridor of scientific activity, which stretches from the Jodrell Bank Observatory in the east, through the Daresbury Laboratory, to our research site.

Creating the Cheshire Energy Research Field Site will involve the BGS drilling some 80 observation boreholes of various depths across a 28 km2 area around Ince Marshes. The network of boreholes has been designed to enable geoscientists and geoengineers to study geology in unprecedented detail, to observe how fluids and gas flow within underground systems and to understand the relationship between the rock layers: from the surface to the deep underground environment.

Measurements will be taken from boreholes, such as seismic activity, water movement and chemical composition. These will be observed and analysed providing one of the most comprehensive geological datasets in the country. The data collected from the research will be made be accessible to all, giving local communities, academics, government, regulators and industry an unrivalled environmental evidence base. The UK Geoenergy Observatories will be open to the entire science, research and development community. Their research will advance our understanding of the rocks below our feet, of how we can use them for storage, of emerging energy technologies such as carbon storage, renewable energy storage and shale gas, and they will provide essential new evidence to underpin the development of so far undiscovered low-carbon energy technologies.

To find out more visit www.bgs.ac.uk/UKGeoEnergyObs

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the British Geological Survey (BGS) are two of the UK’s leading scientific organisations. We want to create an ‘underground observatory’ in the Ince Marshes area of North Cheshire. It will be a world-class research site, and will provide important research evidence on natural resources for heat and energy.

Cheshire Energy Research Field Site to be UK’s eyes and ears of the underground

©Peter Corcoran

For more information please contact:

Enquiries British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham NG12 5GG

tel: 0115 936 3143 email: enquiries@bgs.ac.uk

Two sites are proposed for the UK Geoenergy Observatories. The Cheshire site will enable research into energy sciences and the other, in the east end of Glasgow, will be the focus of geothermal energy research.

The BGS, a component body of NERC, is the nation’s principal supplier of objective, impartial and up-to-date geological expertise and information for decision making for governmental, commercial and individual users. The BGS maintains and develops the nation’s understanding of its geology to improve policymaking, enhance national wealth and reduce risk. It also collaborates with the national and international scientific community in carrying out research in strategic areas, including energy and natural resources, our vulnerability to environmental change and hazards, and our general knowledge of the earth system.

NERC is the UK’s main agency for funding and managing research, training and knowledge exchange in the environmental sciences. Our work covers the full range of atmospheric, Earth, biological, terrestrial and aquatic science, from the deep oceans to the upper atmosphere and from the poles to the equator. We coordinate some of the world’s most exciting research projects, tackling major issues such as climate change, environmental influences on human health, the genetic make-up of life on Earth, and much more. NERC is a non-departmental public body. We receive around £330 million of annual funding from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

The £31 million UK Geoenergy Observatories is NERC’s response to the government’s announcement in the 2014 Autumn Statement that it would create world-class subsurface energy research test centres.

©Peter Corcoran

©Peter Corcoran