Thursday, January 18, 2018

Science & Technology: Steam Separator Designed to Cool Geothermal Water from 140 – 100°C

Innovation: Steam Separator (Bakker Geothermal Services)

The geothermal heat produced by this process will be used in the production of vegetables, fruit, plants and flowers.


Trias Westland is the first Dutch initiative to explore geothermal energy at a depth of more that 4,000 meters. Drilling and pumping water from this depth brings a lot of challenges to surface and one of them is the high temperature of the water.

Exploration and research has learned that the expected water temperature will be approximately 140°C. Producing the water with this temperature to surface brings more than one problem, but one of the biggest problems is that the surface reservoir, or water basin, is not resistant to temperatures above 80°C. So the water must be cooled.

Due to the expected high testflow of approximately 300 m3/hour in combination with the high temperature, there was no turnkey solution in the currently available equipment used during the well-tests, to cool the test-water from 140 – 80°C.

Bakker Oilfield Supply, through its division Bakker Geothermal Services started an innovation process in cooperation with SNN, to develop a Steam Separator designed to cool the water from 140 – 100°C.