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Horizon Europe · 2026 – 2030

Unlocking Earth’s Energy

Demonstrating safe, multi-stage Enhanced Geothermal Systems for Europe.

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Illustrated cross-section of an Enhanced Geothermal System: a town and power plant at the surface, a deep well with three stimulated reservoir zones, and a seismic monitoring borehole
Illustrated cross-section of an Enhanced Geothermal System: a town and power plant at the surface, a deep well with three stimulated reservoir zones, and a seismic monitoring borehole

48 months

May 2026 – April 2030

8 partners

Across 5 countries

4 + 1

EU Member States + 1 Associated Country

3

Strategic Objectives

01 — About

What UPLIFT does

The core of UPLIFT is to demonstrate, at Czechia’s leading energy research site RINGEN, how multi-stage Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) stimulation can be efficiently implemented in Europe, while reducing technical, social, and environmental risks, thus spearheading a potential petrothermal energy revolution.

UPLIFT will allow our team’s technologies and state-of-the-art knowledge to integrate the European societal and legal context with recent multistage stimulation success in the US, to unlock the petrothermal energy potential in Europe, facilitating a significant increase in renewable electricity and heat provision by deep geothermal energy.

02 — Open questions

Four critical questions

UPLIFT brings together key European EGS industry and research institutions to answer 4 critical questions:

Geothermal system illustration

01

How can we reliably improve geothermal well productivity across diverse geological settings?

Hydraulic shear stimulation illustration

02

How can we mitigate injection-induced seismicity in urban areas?

Zonal isolation illustration

03

How can we perform cost-efficient multi-stage stimulation treatments?

Social acceptance illustration

04

How can we increase social acceptance of EGS technologies?

03 — Approach

Why · How · What

Why

The challenge

Hot, low-permeability rocks store orders of magnitude more accessible heat than conventional hydrothermal reservoirs — yet the recent US breakthroughs in unlocking them cannot be transferred to Europe directly, due to different geology, regulation, and demands for social acceptance.

How

The approach

Four proven methods, each developed beyond the current state of the art and applied in combination:

  • Controlled Micro Turbine Drilling — MTD®
  • Safe hydraulic shear stimulation
  • Non-hazardous chemical stimulation
  • Improved proppant placement

Demonstrated together at field scale at the RINGEN site in Litoměřice, Czechia.

What

Three Strategic Objectives

SO1

Zonal isolation and reservoir access

Establish hydraulic connection to natural fracture networks in low-permeability hard rock using Micro Turbine Drilling — MTD®.

SO2

Safe productivity enhancement

Validate adaptive water-only stimulation while keeping seismic risks within acceptable limits.

SO3

Lower costs, stronger social acceptance

Demonstrate commercial and social viability and establish exploitation pathways to unlock European petrothermal potential.

04 — Technical approach

What we are building

We will address these questions by developing:

Micro turbine drilling illustration

01

Micro Turbine Drilling

A new Micro Turbine Drilling (MTD®) bottom-hole assembly (MTD-BHA) prototype for improved reservoir access.

Adaptive stimulation illustration

02

Adaptive stimulation designs

Adaptive stimulation designs for more efficient and safe permeability enhancement.

Laboratory experiments illustration

03

Laboratory experiments

Investigating the self-propping stimulation behaviour of representative European basement rocks, benchmarked against acid and proppant-based stimulation methods.

Proppant placement illustration

04

BedrettoLab comparison

Comparing water-only with proppant-based stimulation treatments in the BedrettoLab.

Digital twin illustration

05

Digital Twins

High-fidelity, physics-based Digital Twins to guide detailed EGS, MTD, and stimulation design, as well as fast surrogate models for real-time operational decision-making.

Seismic monitoring illustration

06

Seismic monitoring

Advancing the local seismic monitoring network to achieve high-resolution, real-time reservoir imaging, quantify induced seismicity risks, and implement adaptive risk mitigation strategies during operations.

Together, these developments will be demonstrated in a field-scale EGS pilot at RINGEN in Litoměřice, enabling:

  • Cost and time reductions
  • Improved geothermal performance and safety
  • Real-time optimisation and predictive risk management
  • Technically robust operations supporting environmental protection and social acceptance

05 — Innovation

Adaptive hydraulic stimulation

A central innovation in UPLIFT is an adaptive approach to reservoir stimulation: injection parameters are continuously adjusted in response to real-time seismic monitoring, so that hydraulic energy input — and therefore permeability — can be maximised while critical seismicity increases are detected in advance and safely managed.

At the reservoir

Cross-section
Injection pumpSurface monitoringDownholemonitoringSeismicityShearStimulatedreservoir volume
High-resolution, real-time seismic monitoring is key to efficient and safe stimulation design.

Injection strategy

Flow rate / time
TimeFlow rateConventional injectionProposed injection
The planned stimulation protocol includes low pressurisation and flow rates, with flowback instead of shut-in when seismic risk is elevated, and the opposite approach when seismic risk is reduced.

Cumulative energy

Energy budget
Cumulative hydraulic energyCumulative seismic energyUnstable stateStable stateConventional injectionProposed injection
In adaptive stimulation treatments, the injection parameters are changed based on site-specific criteria related to the change in seismic injection efficiency.

06 — Consortium

Eight partners, five countries

UPLIFT brings together 8 partners across 4 EU Member States and 1 Associated Country: 3 research centres, 2 universities, 2 SMEs, and 1 European non-profit association.

Natural Earth 1:10m Admin 0 countries. One compound path per country or territory, including islands. Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection. European extent of supplied reference; Russia, Turkey, Iceland and overseas territories omitted. No logos, labels or raster images.BelgiumCzechiaGermanySwedenSwitzerland

Hover or tap a highlighted country to see its partners.

07 — News

Latest news

All updates

Coming next

Demonstration progress from RINGEN, publications, stakeholder events and exploitation opportunities will be published here as the project advances.

Get them by e-mail

08 — Stay informed

Stay informed

UPLIFT will share results, demonstration updates, publications, and stakeholder events as the project progresses. One sign-up covers both the newsletter and the EGS-Connect invitation.

Subscribe to the UPLIFT newsletter

Twice-yearly updates on demonstration progress, publications, events, and exploitation opportunities.

EGS-Connect

Two e-mails a year. Unsubscribe any time.

Opening in the first project months

EGS-Connect

A LinkedIn-based Community of Practice bringing together researchers, industry, and policy stakeholders working on Enhanced Geothermal Systems.

No separate sign-up needed — tick the box and we will send you the invitation when the group opens.

Follow UPLIFT

09 — Contact

Get in touch

Project coordination

GFZ Helmholtz-Zentrum für Geoforschung

Julie Friddell — Project Manager

Hannes Hofmann — Technical Coordinator

Communication lead

European Federation of Geologists (EFG)

Communication, dissemination & exploitation lead.