An Irish geothermal power developer has teamed up with E.ON UK to develop five new deep-geothermal heat and power distribution systems.
GT Energy said work on the first of the five projects, located potentially near Manchester in the northwest of England, will begin this year and could be operational by 2014.
The programme has been estimated to be worth £140million with each plant rated at 7 megawatts.
The firm said its partnership with E.ON was part of a shift in focus to UK operations, stimulated by the UK government’s Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) programme.
The UK last year opened an 860 million-pound Renewable Heat Incentive program, subsidizing output from sources such as geothermal and solar thermal generators and biomass boilers.
GT Energy was set up in 2007 when managing director Padraig Hanly identified the growth of deep geothermal heat and electricity systems in Germany.
It then turned its focus on the UK and Ireland and has secured planning permission for Ireland’s first geothermal electricity generation plant.
Britain has a target to get 15% of its energy and 12% of its heat from renewable sources by 2020. Heating and hot water account for 47% UK energy demand and 46% of carbon dioxide output, according to the government.
St Andrews University is investigating various types of deep geothermal resources that could be exploitable within Scotland, including hot sedimentary aquifers of Devonian-Carboniferous age in the Central Belt that could support urban and industrial heat demands and hot rocks that could support enhanced geothermal systems for power generation in the Grampian Highland, Northern Highlands and Galloway.
It says its researches “indicate that significant geothermal resources undoubtedly exist in Scotland, but much of the evidence for their presence has been obliterated by the cooling effects of the last glaciation”.
“Overcoming this problem in order to identify potential resources at depths below the glacial effect is central to our research effort.”
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