Scheme to Tap Cheap Energy (City News - Stoke-on-Trent)
Surveys to assess feasibility of turning hot water into heating
Seismic surveys will help Stoke-on-Trent City Council decide
the future of its multi-million pound scheme to turn hot water locked deep
underground into cheap heating.
The latest feasibility work on the deep geothermal District
Heat Network will involve two trucks travelling from Keele across the Etruria Valley
Experts have measured the deep underground water temperature
at 95 degrees Centigrade and believe heating harnessed from it could be up to 10 per cent
cheaper than traditional heating systems.
The plan is to pump this hot water to the surface and return
it back again through a closed loop using two wells.
A simple heat exchanger would extract energy during the
process, passing the heat into a network of pipes for distribution to large
scale premises in Hanley, Shelton
and Stoke.
Backed by £19.75million in Government money, the council
will deliver the pipe network.
Market testing for potential private sector partners to
establish an Energy Service Company (ESCo) is already underway. Completion of
the whole scheme is anticipated by 2019.
Sebastien Danneels, the council’s Technical Lead Manager for
the project, said: “The scheme has to be commercially viable and technically
feasible to ensure that the customers are able to gain the benefits expected.
It’s an innovative and fascinating scheme with significant practical benefits
for the city as well as putting Stoke-on-Trent at the forefront of low carbon
district heating in the UK .”
Viable alternatives and additional heat sources have been
identified by the council if the deep geothermal heat source is not feasible so
the scheme will continue.
There are already 212 successful geothermal district heating
schemes across Europe . The city scheme would
be the first of its kind of this scale in the UK
