Thermo-active structures are underground facilities which enable the exchange of thermal energy between the ground and the overlying buildings, thus providing renewable means of space heating and cooling. Although this technology is becoming increasingly popular, the behaviour of geotechnical structures under additional thermal loading is still not fully understood. This paper focuses on the use of underground tunnels as thermo-active structures and explains their behaviour through a series of finite element analyses based on an existing case study of isothermal tunnels in London Clay. The bespoke finite element codeI CFEP is adopted which is capable of simulating the fully coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical behaviour of porous materials. The complex coupled interactions between the tunnel and the surrounding soil are explored bycomparing results from selected types of coupledand uncoupled simulations. It is demonstratedthat: (1) the thermally-induceddeformation of the tunnel and the ground are more critical design aspects than the thermally-induced forces in the tunnel lining, and (2) the modelling approach in terms of the type of analysis, as well as the assumed permeability of the tunnel lining, have a significant effect on the computed tunnel response and,hence, must be chosen carefully