Geofit Project Creating the Opportunity of Geographical – BIM (GEOBIM) Platform to Manage Geothermal Systems

Within the GEOFIT project (Smart Geothermal Systems1), BIM environment has been defined as GeoBIM platform. This term refers to those specific geothermal applications which are included in a tailormade BIM platform to manage the geothermal systems,
building, site and assets information from models, sensors installed and simulations. In GEOFIT project, the demo-sites location is enriched up to the holistic view of the retrofitted buildings with all the geothermal facilities designed, simulated, installed, commissioned, and monitored, from inception onward, during the lifecycle of a facility and includes all stakeholders who
need facility information – from the designers to the occupants with the building in operation. This holistic view includes the execution control and the permanent geographical reference because the simulation, monitoring and design processes happen in a specific geographical context. The definition and implementation of a GEOBIM platform is paramount for the project and it is one of the main outcomes of GEOFIT project. While BIM implementation is ubiquitous in the architectural issues of the project,
relying mostly on CAD designs, geographical information has a limited role particularly in construction projects, it is often restricted to some specific tasks or seen as a potential redundancy to BIM.
Considering the geographical dependent tasks in GEOFIT, GIS can bring a valuable complementary contribution to the BIM process by providing spatial input and geospatial visualization, adding information on the retrofitting demo-site’s surrounding environment and underground thermal information that is essential for design decisions and the approval processes regarding building integrity and geothermal energy availability. In this paper, an interdisciplinary cooperation, data exchange, and data transfer occurs
among the different professionals and disciplines involved for the successful retrofitting project planning and energy efficiency demonstration throughout the GEOBIM platform. This is implemented to assemble this set of powerful assessment, inspection and ground research, testing, and real time monitoring tools.

Raw data is available for download here.