Second-year PhD student Ábel Markó participated in the European Geothermal PhD Days (2022.04.27-2022.04.29) and the EASYGO project training week (2022.04.20-2022.04.26), with the support of the József and Erzsébet Tóth Endowed Hydrogeology Chair.
The ‘European Geothermal PhD Days’ is the most important conference for PhD students dealing with the research in geothermal energy, where they present their current results every year. In 2021, due to the pandemic situation, it was organized in online form, this year it was held again in person.
Before the conference, Ábel participated at the EASYGO (Efficiency & Safety in Geothermal Operation) geothermal project training as an external student. The training provided knowledge for sustainable and efficient geothermal utilization, focusing on the field of reservoir modeling, both in theoretical and software background. This also helped in making progress for his PhD research.
During the training week and the EGPD conference, Ábel presented the results of the research carried out together with the Geological Survey of Finnland (GTK) within the framework of the ENeRAG project. In the framework of shallow geothermal methods, a new workflow was presented and applied in the study area of central Budapest, to estimate shallow geothermal potential estimation (i.e., the amount of thermal energy that can be extracted by borehole heat exchangers) in an urban environment.
The conference provided an opportunity to present research results to an international audience – as well as to receive feedback from researchers working in the field – and to gain experience by learning about current research, and participating in the professional program. Both the keynote lecturers and the participants presenting their current research helped expanding scientific knowledge. In addition, thanks to the conference, it was possible to get in touch with PhD students dealing with similar topics and their supervisors, which may enable valuable research cooperation in the future.
