Geothermal power plants are important source of energy these days. The geothermal energy is eco-friendly and this energy is harnessed by drilling deep holes into the earth. The holes are drilled until the discovery of a geothermal hot spot. It is not easy to construct geothermal power plants and you need brilliant engineers to construct these plants on large scale. The heat of the earth is used by the geothermal power plants to heat the water. This hot water runs a steam turbine, which generates energy. Though there are several geothermal power plants across the world, here is a list of five biggest ones:
1. Utahâs 10MW geothermal power plant
The demand to increase the use of renewable energy in our daily life is increasing these days with many of us interested to use solar panels and wind turbines to power the gadgets use in our homes. It is to be noted that these energy sources are dependent on climatic conditions and it is costly to install these technologies. These are the main reasons while people are finding it tough to adopt these cleaner sources of energy.
We can say that currently the cheapest source of eco-friendly energy available to us is the geothermal energy and many countries are now setting up power plants to harness this energy. Utah in US also boasts of a huge geothermal power plant built by Raser Technologies. The company complains that this plant is 100% eco-friendly because it is completely emission free. The plant started its operations in 2009 and it produces 10MW of green power.
2. Harry Reid’s hybrid solar-geothermal power plant
This solar-geothermal power plant was announced by Nevada Senator in 2008 during the National Clean Energy Summit. The 24-MW facility will be used to combine 80,000 polycrystalline PV modules and hydrothermal technology. The project to build this plant was given to Enel. PV was selected by Enel because it is cost effective. This geothermal power plant started operations in 2009. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu supported the solar-retrofit of this eco-friendly power plant. The plant created job opportunities for the local people as well. Reid is optimistic that this power plant will prove beneficial for the local people and help them learn about the importance of using clean energy in daily life. The American leaders are hopeful that the US can become world leaders when it comes to using the clean energy.
3. Raser Technologiesâ 120,000MW geothermal power plant
On August 22, 2008, Raser Technologies announced its plan to construct a large geothermal power plant in New Mexico. The company made the announcement in a joint press conference with New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. The plant with an output of 120,000MW will be located near Animasâ Lightning Dock. Raser Technologies said that a new binary liquid technology was used in the plant, which will help it to tap low levels of geothermal energy from the hot spot. The company is hopeful that they would be able to build modular plants to tap the unused 120,000 MW geothermal energy across the US. The generation units were manufactured off-site and Raser Technologies delivered each unit to the location. The company then installed all units to create a large geothermal farm. The plant has several 450 kW units. The plant started generation its first 10 MW of power by early 2009. Raser Technologies is hopeful that another 15 MW of power will be added in Phase II.
4. Ohaaki geothermal power plant
Operated and owned by Contact Energy, the Ohaaki geothermal power plant features a natural draft cooling tower, which is 105 m high. The plant located on the banks of the Waikato River is one of its kinds in New Zealand. Initially, it was expected that the plant would generate 104 MW of power but the decline in the steam field decreased the capacity of this plant to just 65 MW. The annual output of this eco-friendly power plant is around 400 GWh pa. This plant has three operational turbines. The condensers are fitted in the back end of this plant. Cooling tower feeds cold water to the condenser.
5. Nesjavellir Geothermal Power Station
Located in Thingvellir, Iceland, the installed capacity of this geothermal power plant is 120 MW. This power plant was commissioned in May 1990 and it is Icelandâs second largest geothermal power plant. The construction for this plant began in 1987. Besides producing 120MW of electrical power, this power plant also delivers around 480 US gal of hot water per second.
