Geothermal

Early humans may use geothermal water in pool and hot spring for cooking and bathing. The first use of geothermal energy for electric power production was in Italy with experimental work by Prince Gionori Conti between 1904 and 1905. The first commercial power plant (250 kWe) was commissioned in 1913 at Larderello, Italy. An experimental 35 kWe plant was installed in The Geyers in 1932, and provided power to the local resort. These developments were followed in New Zealand at Wairakei in 1958; an experimental plant at Pathe, Mexico in 1959; and the first commercial plant at The Geysers in the United States in 1960. Japan followed with 23 MWe at Matsukawa in 1966. All of these early plants used steam directly from the earth (dry steam fields), except for New Zealand, which was the first to use flashed or separated steam for running the turbines. The former USSR produced power from the first true binary power plant, 680 kWe using 81˚C water at Paratunka on the Kamchatka peninsula – the lowest temperature, at that time. Iceland first produced power at Namafjall in northern Iceland, from a 3 MWe non-condensing turbine. These were followed by plants in El Salvador, China, Indonesia, Kenya, Turkey, Philippines, Portugal (Azores), Greece and Nicaragua in the 1970s and 80s. Later plants were installed in Thailand, Argentina, Taiwan, Australia, Costa Rica, Austria, Guatemala, Ethiopia, with the latest installations in Germany and Papua New Guinea. (See Cataldi, et al., 1999 for more background).
The basic principle of using geothermal energy is based on the heat transfer from the underground and overground. There are mainly seven types of geothermal resources that utilized today.

• Convective hydrothermal resources
• Vapor dominated systems 
• Water dominated systems
• Sedimentary basins
• Geopressured resources
• Radiogenic resources
• Hot dry rock resources
• Molten rock or magma resources 

Reference

WORlD GEOTHERMal GENERaTION IN 2007 (2007) Ruggero Bertani, Enel – International Division – Renewable Energy Business Development - Via 

Dalmazia 15, 00198 Rome, Italy

The Future of 

Geothermal Energy (2010)

 

The Future of  

Impact of Enhanced Geothermal  

Systems (EGS) on the United States 

in the 21

st

 Century

Geothermal Energy: 

International Market 

Update (2011) 

 Alison Holm, Leslie Blodgett, 

Dan Jennejohn and Karl Gawell

CHARACTERISTICS, DEVELOPMENT AND UTILIZATION OF GEOTHERMAL RESOURCES (2007) 

John W. Lund, Geo-Heat Center, Oregon Institute of Technology