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Three geothermal projects run by Keele University, Newcastle and Durham Universi ...

Three geothermal projects run by Keele University, Newcastle and Durham University, and Cofily District Energy in Southampton have won a total of £1.1mn in funding from the government’s Deep Geothermal Challenge Fund’s second round. On announcing the award, UK Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change Greg Barker noted that: ‘Geothermal sources in the south-west of the UK alone have the potential to meet 2% of the country’s annual electricity demand.’ In the UK as a whole, it has been estimated there is geothermal resource to produce up to 35 TWh/y of electricity for around 50 years.
Deep geothermal energy uses the natural heat found deep underground to produce electricity and heat at the surface. Geothermal energy is non-intermittent, low-carbon, renewable and could be a valuable technology in diversifying the UK’s energy mix and reducing the UK’s dependence on imported fuels.
The first funding round (£4mn) concentrated on deep geothermal power, and the two successful Cornwall-based projects continue to move ahead. This second round concentrated on heat-only projects.
The Deep Geothermal Challenge fund was set up to help companies carry out exploratory work needed to find viable sites for this technology. The funding has been allocated as follows:
£500,000 to Keele University, to drill a 1,200-metre borehole to provide geothermal heat for its proposed sustainable campus;
£400,000 to a Newcastle/Durham University project to fund the drilling, hydraulic testing and geophysical logging of a 2-km deep borehole at ‘Science Central’, a large development in central Newcastle; and
£200,000 to Cofily District Energy, to part fund the refit of the Southampton deep geothermal well.
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