Birla Vishvakarma Mahavidyalaya

Engineering College, Vallabh Vidyanagar,

Gujarat, India
[An Autonomous Institution]
Managed by Charutar Vidyamandal

3EE82: RENEWABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES

A Presentation on
“Geothermal Energy Sources”
By ME : GROUP-04 (19ME026, 19ME42, 20ME307)
 01 INTRODUCTI
ON
02 GEOTHERMA
L SOURCES
03 SOURCE CONVERSION
GEOTHERMA METHODS
04 ADVANTAGES
L ENERGY
SOURCES 05 DISADVANTA
GES
06 APPLICATIONS

07 SOURCES IN
INDIA
INTRODUCTION
• India is the world’s fifth largest consumer of energy. The current energy
demand is expected to increase four times by 2025. Energy supply was not
able to keep pace with demand.
• Many area of India is suffering from power shortage and have to apply
costly diesel generator. Therefore energy efficiency and renewable energy are
becoming increasingly important in India to achieve energy security and to
reduce green house gas emission from predominantly coal fired power plant.
• The main culprit behind conventional non – renewable energy resources is
the uncontrolled emission of CO2 which leads to global climate change.
• Therefore, it becomes necessarily to reduce the usage of non renewable
energy resources with the consideration of future requirement, with help of
increasing usage of renewable sources.
• There is the large amount of heat lying in earth's interior in the form of
Volcanoes, geysers and hot springs. This thermal energy contained in the
interior of the earth is called geothermal energy.
• The Geothermal energy is enormous and last for several millions of years.
Hence it is called renewable energy.
• It comes from radioactive decay in the core of earth, which heats the earth
from inside out and thus energy/power can be extracted owing to the
temperature difference between hot rock deep in the earth and relatively cool
surface air and water.
• The heat from the earth's core continuously flows
outward. It transfers to the surrounding layer of rock,
the mantle. When temperatures and pressures
become high enough, some mantle rock melts,
becoming magma. Then, because it is lighter (less
dense) than the surrounding rock, the magma rises
(convects), moving slowly up toward the earth's
crust, carrying the heat from below.
 Hot spring -

• Sometimes the hot magma reaches all the way to the surface, where we
know it as lava. But most often the magma remains below earth's crust,
heating nearby rock and water (rainwater that has seeped deep into the earth)
- sometimes as hot as 700 degrees F. Some of this hot geothermal water
travels back up through faults and cracks and reaches the earth’s surface as
hot springs or geysers, but most of it stays deep underground, trapped in
cracks and porous rock. This natural collection of hot water is called a
geothermal reservoir
GEOTHERMAL SOURCES
 Geothermal resources are divided into four categories :
1. Hydrothermal convective system - Vapour dominated or Dry steam fields.
- Liquid dominated or Wet steam fields.
2. Geopressure resources.
3. Petro-Thermal or Hot dry rocks(HDR).
4. Magma resources.
HYDROTHERMAL CONVECTIVE
SYSTEM- DRY STEAM FIELDS

• In this system the conversion device is the steam turbine which use
directly the low pressure, high volume fluid produced in the steam field.
• Dry steam from well is collected, filtered to remove abrasives and flows to turbine,
which in turn drives generator.
• The temperature of dry steam is about 150 to 200 degree Celsius, after flowing to
higher well head it becomes slightly super heated as pressure drops takes place from
35kg/cm2 to 7kg/cm2 .
• Then steam enters into centrifugal separator and then it enters in turbine for power.
• After exiting turbine it enters into condensing plant to get condensed and then to
cooling tower
• Direct dry steam plants range in size from 8 MW to 140 MW (S&P Global Platts,
HYDROTHERMAL CONVECTIVE
SYSTEM - WET STEAM FIELDS
• In liquid dominated reservoir, the water temperature is above the normal
boiling point (100 degree Cel.). However because water in reservoir is under
pressure it does not boil but remains in liquid state. When water comes to the
surface the pressure drop takes place and rapid boiling occurs and the liquid
water “flashes” into mixture of hot water and steam.
• The steam can be separated and used to generate electric power as usual.
• The remaining water can be utilized for any required application such as
process heating or may be distilled to yield purified water.
• There are two methods of wet steam field – a.) Flashed-steam system.
b.) Binary-cycle system.
a.) Flashed-steam
system.
• These are the most common
type of geothermal electricity
plants in operation today.
• The steam is obtained from a
separation process called
flashing. The steam is then
directed to the turbines, and the
resulting condensate is sent for
reinjection or further flashing at
lower pressure.
• The temperature of the fluid drops if the pressure is lowered, so flash power
plants work best with well temperatures greater than 180°C. The fluid
fraction exiting the separators, as well as the steam condensate (except for
condensate evaporated in a wet cooling system), are usually re-injected.
• Flash plants vary in size depending on whether they are single- (0.2-80
MW), double - (2-110 MW) or triple-flash (60- 150 MW) plants.
 b.) Binary-cycle
•system.
In order to isolate the turbine from
corrosive or erosive material, heat
exchanger in order to transfer heat
from source to working medium of
system.
• So it is closed loop cycle where
geothermal resource is only used to
heat working medium.
• Working medium runs turbine and
after losing temp. it will again
achieve temperature from
geothermal resource with help of
turbine.
• Binary plants are used for resource temperatures between 100°C and 170°C.
Although it is possible to work with temperatures lower than 100°C, the
efficiency of the electricity output decreases.
• Binary plants range in size from less than 1 MW to 50 MW.
GEOPRESSURE RESOURCES.
• It is hot water trapped underground at the depth of about 4km to 9.1km.
• Drilling for oil and gas has revealed the existence of reservoir containing salt
water at moderately high temperature and very high pressure in a belt some
1200km in length.
• Because of high pressure of water up to 1350 atm. in deepest layer, reservoir
are referred to as geopressured. Occurs in large and deep sedimentary basins.
• Here substantial amount of methane CH4 is dissolved in pressurized water
and released when pressure is reduced. It is thought to be about low
temperature (160 degree Cel.) and is under very high pressure.
• This resources are quite large and can be used to produce electric energy if
proper technology could be developed or we can also recover natural gases.
MAGMA RESOURCES.
• These consist if partially or completely molten rock with temperature in
excess of 650 degree Cel. , which may be encountered at moderate depths,
especially in recently active volcanic region.
• The molten rock or magma present in the volcanic vents at a temperature
ranging from 700C to 1600C.
• These resources have large geothermal energy content, but they are restricted
to a relatively few location.
• Furthermore, the very high temperature will make extraction of the energy a
difficult technological problem.
DIRECT UTILIZATION

• Direct use of hot water from geothermal resources can be used to provide
heat for industrial processes, crop drying, or heating buildings.
• In this method, the hot fluid is pumped directly into a building’s hot water-
based heating system, under sidewalks, or into pools.
DIRECT UTLIZATION OF GEOTHERMAL HEAT
SOURCE.
 ADVANTAGES
0 Versatile in its use and cheaper compared to energies obtained
from other fossils fuels.

1 Geothermal energy delivers greater amount of net energy from its system then
0 other alternative or conventional system.

2
0 Geothermal power plants have highest annual load factors of 85% to 90%. Also has
massive potential – estimated shows a worldwide potential of 2 terawatts(TW).

3 It is renewable resources that has practically no intermittency, has highest energy density ,and
0 economically not far removed from conventional technologies, it is classified renewable as the
earth’s interior is and will continue in the process of cooling for indefinite future.
4
 DISADVANTAGES
0 Overall efficiency for power production is low (15%), compared
to fossil fuel plant (35-45%).

1 The withdrawal of large amount of steam or water from hydrothermal reservoir

0 may result into surface subsidence (or settlement).

2
0 Large area are needed for exploitation of geothermal energy as much of it is diffused and
can result into deforestation.

3 The steam and hot water gushing out of earth may contain H2S, CO2, NH3 etc. if these gases are
0 vented to atmosphere, may result or leads to green house gas effect, in turn increased level of global
warming.
4
 APPLICATIONS
There are mainly three application of geothermal energy :
• Electric power generation.
• Industrial process heating.
• Space heating of various kind of building.
Other application may include –
• Sulphur and Sulphuric acid production.
• Molasses fermentation.
• Crop Drying.