Geothermal Energy

The amount of thermal energy beneath our feet in the Earth’s crust is enormous, and is an important alternative to fossil fuels in our drive towards net-zero

Geothermal Energy

Together with colleagues in sister spin-out company GeoEnergy Durham, we have over a decade of experience in providing geological and geospatial services to geothermal energy companies. Our expertise spans initial appraisal implementation and monitoring across a range of different geothermal scenarios.

Example Project 1: Geothermal Power Plant Monitoring

Client:
Energy Development Corporation

The Setting:

High-enthalpy geothermal power plants in high heat-flow regime near active tectonic plate margin.

The Value:

Long-term near real-time monitoring of operational power generating facilities.

Techologies:

GNSS monitoring, time-series analysis, ground motion detection.

Reference:

Pastoriza et al. 2020.

Example image Geothermal Energy

Example Project 2: Karst

Clients:
Consortium of energy companies.

The Setting:

Subsurface karst systems can provide very high rates of fluid flow, that can help to make low-enthalpy geothermal energy commercially viable.

The Value:

Providing detailed geometry and volumetrics of karst void spaces, and their quantitative spatial distribution in relationship to the natural fracture network

Techologies:

Lidar, geospatial analysis, fracture network characterisation.

Reference:

Daniels et al. 2018, Jones et al.  20172020.  Also see: call for interest for a project to further enhance multi-scale characterisation of UK Carboniferous karst systems.

Example image Geothermal Energy 2

Other Geothermal Projects

The Partner:
GeoEnergy Durham Ltd.

The Setting:

GRL is part-owner and close collaborator of GeoEnergy Durham (GED), another spin-out company from the Earth Sciences department at Durham University.

The Value:

GED has direct, hands-on experience in geothermal energy since 2010, including key involvement in drilling two deep research wells, an instrumental role in founding Brit Geothermal, the UK national research centre led by Durham University, as well as scores or research and commercial geothermal projects.

Reference:

Adams et al. 2010, 2015; Gluyas et al. 2018; Hirst et al. 2015; Narayan et al. 2018, 2021.

Example image Geothermal Energy 3

Contact GRL Now:

+44 (0)191 384 1759