The optimization of strategies to operate borehole thermal energy storage systems can play an important role for the exploitation of this technology. Available tools utilized for the design of borehole fields don't consider these aspects in the calculation. For this reason a network-based methodology which gives a sufficient level of detail to describe different system operation strategies has been developed. In particular, the method allows to calculate how the heat is distributed among the borehole heat exchangers in the field according to the way the brine is supplied to the borehole heat storage system. This enables to test the same borehole field configuration pattern for different piping arrangement. An example of application where a simultaneous need of heating and cooling is met by extracting and injecting heat in different region of the ground storage is considered to illustrate the potential of the method. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.