Planning Under Way for Germany's Deepest Thermal Power Plant

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--German company Geothermis AG (Berlin, Germany) plans to construct a 10-megawatt (MW) geothermal power station in Lohmen, Germany, in the northern county of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. The Board of Mines, which is in charge of the mining rights in the county, has granted the investor the approval for the exploration well. Based on studies and analyses from the German natural gas industry, Geothermis announced that the facility would be the deepest geothermal power plant in Germany, with a depth of 6,200 meters.

Drilling works are projected to start this November. The first drilling tower would be erected between Lohmen and Oldenstorf, and the second one in Zehma. A horizontal shaft will connect the two boreholes. The facility is scheduled to be operational in 2013, and Geothermis plans to invest $128 million in the project.

Germany's Renewable Energy Agency has said that the deep geothermics technology power production is still in the initial stages in Germany. Three geothermal power plants are in operation today: one in Neustadt-Glewe, one in Landau, and one in Unterhaching. The facilities have a combined installed power capacity of 6.6 MW and provided 18.6 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of power in 2009. The Federal Environment Ministry expects to increase this number to 1.8 billion kWh by 2020.

Today, geothermal energy is used mainly for the production of heat, rather than power. In 2009, 170 geothermal heat utilities provided 100 MW of heat to German households, according to the Renewable Energy Agency. Total sales for the German geothermal industry were more than $1.2 billion last year. More than 9,100 employees work in the geothermal power sector.

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