Skip to main content

Horizon Europe · Innovation Action · 2026 – 2030

UPLIFT – Unlocking Earth’s Energy

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

UPLIFT is a four-year Horizon Europe Innovation Action demonstrating, at Czechia’s leading energy research site RINGEN in Litoměřice, how multi-stage Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) stimulation can be efficiently implemented in Europe — while reducing technical, social, and environmental risks.

Project at a glance

  • 48 monthsMay 2026 – April 2030
  • 8 partnersacross 5 countries
  • 4 + 1EU Member States + 1 Associated Country
  • 3Strategic Objectives

About UPLIFT

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

  1. How can we reliably improve geothermal well productivity across diverse geological settings?
  2. How can we mitigate injection-induced seismicity in urban areas?
  3. How can we perform cost-efficient multi-stage stimulation treatments?
  4. How can we increase social acceptance of EGS technologies?

We will address these questions by developing a new Micro Turbine Drilling (MTD®) bottom-hole assembly (MTD-BHA) prototype for improved reservoir access and adaptive stimulation designs for more efficient and safe permeability enhancement. To support this, we will investigate the self-propping stimulation behaviour of representative European basement rocks through laboratory experiments and benchmark these results against acid and proppant-based stimulation methods, and we will compare water-only with proppant-based stimulation treatments in the BedrettoLab. Additionally, we will develop 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. We will also advance 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, and technically robust operations that support environmental protection, social acceptance, and pathways for industrial deployment and long-term impact.

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.

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:

    1. controlled Micro Turbine Drilling – MTD®
    2. safe hydraulic shear stimulation
    3. non-hazardous chemical stimulation
    4. improved proppant placement

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

  • What — three Strategic Objectives

    • SO1Zonal isolation and reservoir access. Establish hydraulic connection to natural fracture networks in low-permeability hard rock using Micro Turbine Drilling – MTD®.
    • SO2Safe productivity enhancement. Validate adaptive water-only stimulation while keeping seismic risks within acceptable limits.
    • SO3Lower costs, stronger social acceptance. Demonstrate commercial and social viability and establish exploitation pathways to unlock European petrothermal potential.

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 managed.

Three-panel diagram of UPLIFT's adaptive hydraulic stimulation approach: real-time seismic monitoring (left), the stimulation protocol with flowback or shut-in adapted to seismic risk (middle), and the optimisation strategy for maximising hydraulic energy input while responding to critical seismicity (right).
Adaptive hydraulic stimulation. High-resolution, real-time seismic monitoring is key to efficient and safe stimulation design (left). 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 (middle). In adaptive stimulation treatments, the injection parameters are changed based on site-specific criteria related to the change in seismic injection efficiency. We intend to maximise hydraulic energy input (and thus permeability increase) while detecting in advance and responding to potentially critical seismicity increases (right).

The consortium

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.

  • Coordinator

    GFZ

    GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences

    Germany

  • CU

    Univerzita Karlova
    Charles University

    Czechia

  • GES

    Geo-Energie Suisse AG

    Switzerland

  • Fraunhofer IEG

    Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Angewandten Forschung

    Germany

  • SOL

    Solexperts AG

    Switzerland

  • FCC

    Fraunhofer-Chalmers Centrum för Industrimatematik

    Sweden

  • EFG

    European Federation of Geologists

    Belgium

  • ETH

    Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich

    Switzerland

Latest news

All news →

Stay informed

UPLIFT will share results, demonstration updates, publications, and stakeholder events as the project progresses. Choose how to keep up:

Subscribe to the UPLIFT newsletter

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

Subscribe

Follow UPLIFT on social media

More channels are rolling out progressively. The first accounts are live now; remaining channels will be activated over the coming months. Bookmark and check back, or subscribe to the newsletter to be notified when each channel goes live.

Join EGS-Connect — the European EGS community of practice

EGS-Connect will become a LinkedIn-based Community of Practice, bringing together researchers, industry, and policy stakeholders working on Enhanced Geothermal Systems. The group will be opened during the first project months.

Contact

  • Project Coordination

    GFZ Helmholtz-Zentrum für Geoforschung

    • Julie Friddell — Project Manager
    • Hannes Hofmann — Technical Coordinator

    coordinator@uplift-horizon.eu

  • Communication Lead

    European Federation of Geologists (EFG)

    Communication, dissemination & exploitation lead.

    comms@uplift-horizon.eu

European Union flag

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

UPLIFT (Grant Agreement No. 101269511) is funded under Horizon Europe call HORIZON-CL5-2025-02, topic HORIZON-CL5-2025-02-D3-03. © 2026–2030 The UPLIFT Consortium. All partner logos and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Scroll to Top