On 9 June 2026, the GEOSYN Horizon Europe General Assembly took place in the Province of Pesaro and Urbino, Italy.
The GEOSYN project aims to develop a high-temperature heat pump to meet industrial heating and cooling needs while increasing awareness of and confidence in geothermal energy as a sustainable heat source.
During the meeting, project partners reviewed the achievements of the first 18 months of implementation, discussed the project's current status, and agreed on the work plan and key activities for the next project period.
Representing the NGO Geothermal Ukraine, Yuliia Demchuk, Member of the Board, presented the organization's progress and achievements within the project and participated in discussions on the next steps and upcoming tasks.
As part of the project meeting, our team, together with other consortium partners, visited the laboratories and production facilities of Rivacold Srl — the project partner responsible for developing the high-temperature heat pump.
After 18 months of collaborative work, the project's concept and engineering design are gradually becoming a real industrial solution. Today, the prototype heat pump is already undergoing testing in the RIVACOLD laboratories, marking an important milestone on the path toward demonstrating the technology under real industrial conditions.
At the heart of the solution is a high-temperature heat pump using water (R718) as the working fluid. The system is designed to utilize geothermal heat at approximately 120°C and upgrade it to 200°C for steam production and other industrial process applications.
To achieve this, the system incorporates a specially designed four-stage compressor with intercooling between compression stages, ensuring high efficiency and stable operation.
In addition to producing high-temperature heat, the system simultaneously generates cooling for industrial processes, delivering:
- up to 50 kW of thermal energy for industrial applications;
- up to 20 kW of cooling capacity for process cooling.
One of the key advantages of GEOSYN is its cascade energy utilization approach. This enables the maximum use of geothermal energy potential, minimizes energy losses, and significantly reduces CO₂ emissions compared to conventional gas-fired boilers.
The technology has strong potential for deployment across the food processing, pulp and paper, cement, chemical, and other energy-intensive industries, where both high-temperature heat and process cooling are required.
The next major milestone will be the technology demonstration at Formaggeria Toscana, a dairy processing plant in Italy, scheduled for 2027. In parallel, feasibility studies will assess the integration of the heat pump into the production processes of PJSC Zhydachiv Pulp and Paper Mill (Lviv region, Ukraine) and a new cement plant planned for construction in the Mykolaiv region as part of Ukraine's reconstruction programme.
Following successful validation, the project will open new opportunities for scaling up the technology and deploying it across industrial enterprises in Ukraine.
Learn more about the GEOSYN project on the project website.
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