Energy Pilot in the "Kompani Lauritzen" Camp

But Bømoen is much more.

– Bømoen and Voss can become a prime example of using groundwater-based geothermal energy, says Christian Rekve Bryn from COWI.

Representatives from Vidin and researchers from Plovdiv, together with NORCE, received a thorough introduction to the new Bømoen facility, which is located in the heart of "Kompani Lauritzen" land.

Here in the old military camp, COWI, the municipality, and landowners work hard together. Perhaps in the near future, this can become a neighbourhood based on clean water and clean energy from beneath the old military camp. New ideas for new water sources and clean energy solutions are emerging every week.

Rekve Bryn has mapped large areas of Voss municipality, revealing not only the enormous resources here at Bømoen, but also other parts of the municipality where geothermal energy would be highly valuable. He proudly shows the maps to our experts and the Bulgarian guests.

The illustration below shows the multipurpose use of resources in Voss, which will henceforth be utilized for the benefit of residents and businesses.

Extracting the energy requires good knowledge and understanding of where the resources lie and quantifying their size.

– Bømoen is like a sandbox for our research, says Rekve Bryn.

The management and distribution of energy and water are central to his PhD work, and several other researchers are involved in the project under the auspices of COWI.

Cleaner energy to Europe through EEA & Norway Grant support

Kirsti Midttømme, Chief Scientist and Energy Expert at NORCE, has in recent years worked with several countries in what we used to call Eastern Europe before the Soviet Union's dissolution in the early 1990s.

Poland, Lithuania, Croatia, and now Bulgaria have received assistance and tips from the experienced researcher. The latest is Bulgaria, where NORCE has assisted in a project worth nearly 14 million Norwegian kroner to upgrade the school "St. Cyril and Methodius" in Vidin, a city by the Danube River, near the border of Ukraine.

The project aims to ensure the school has clean and good heating. This involves both implementing measures for new types of energy and construction-related measures at the school, such as better insulation and windows.

The project is funded by the EEA & Norway Grants Bulgaria Program. The goal is to make the school an energy-efficient building, by European standards, where a significant portion of the energy is supplied by renewable energy solutions.

– Seven measures have been determined for this purpose. They will significantly reduce the building's heat loss through construction interventions and the integration of new heat sources, explains Midttømme.

Green and local energy supplies

In the long term, the existing oil-fired hot water boiler will be replaced by a geothermal installation consisting of two water-to-water heat pump units with a total heating capacity of 360 kW. It will be connected to an external geothermal loop. Solar panels for self-consumption, a battery storage system, and a monitoring and control system will also be installed.

This will ensure that 90% of the school's energy consumption comes from clean sources, and the pilot building will achieve energy class A+, making it a nearly zero-energy building (NZEB).

– The implementation of the project demonstrates and concretely shows how old buildings can become more energy-smart and utilize energy more efficiently on both cold and warm days. This project will be an example to follow for the rest of the schools in the city and potentially for other municipalities in the country that want to learn from the pilot, says Midttømme.

The project at the school in Vidin has been led by researchers Todor Belezhkov and Liyana Adjarova from the Energy Agency of Plovdiv. Together with the city's top leaders and project managers Hadezda Petkova, Mariela Nicolova, and Teodora Valcheva, they are in Norway, today in Voss, to learn more.

The future lies in geothermal energy - also in Bulgaria:

– This is the future, to extract hot water from the ground, says researcher Todoz Belezhkov from the Energy Agency of Plovdiv to both NORCE and the local newspaper Hordaland, which has joined us on the tour around Bømoen.

Norway's number one water

The water at Bømoen is not only interesting in terms of providing electricity to homes and industries. The water has also been voted Norway's cleanest and best water. For the Bulgarians, who cannot drink their tap water at home, it is a great experience to drink water - non-filtered, non-chlorinated, and clean - straight from the ground.

- Yes, this glass gives you ten more years, smiles Jakob Håheim, head of water and sewage in Voss municipality, as he gladly serves all the guests.

Today, Bulgaria gets half of its energy for heating buildings from coal, and around 40 per cent comes from the country's two nuclear power plants. Additionally, there are plans to build four new reactors. The American company Westinghouse Electric Company is behind this.

Bulgaria has a lot of sunshine and plans to invest in solar energy, such as in Aytos, 30 kilometres from the Black Sea, and wind energy also has some potential, according to studies of the country's energy resources.

But back to Bømoen and Voss, where the Bulgarians had much to think about.

– For us, using the hot water underground is a totally unused and untapped resource. We want to utilize it, says Belezhkov.