Mon, 26 September, 2022
A panel meeting was held on 20 September at TWI’s head office near Cambridge to discuss the topic of, ‘Materials Performance: Challenges and Exploring Opportunities for Geothermal Sustainability.’
The meeting created awareness of both the materials challenges and the opportunities to explore the potential of geothermal energy as a relatively untapped natural resource.
Geothermal has faced challenges with the cost of operation due to the highly aggressive natural environments associated with the industry. There has also been a lack of awareness of the potential opportunities of geothermal and this meeting sought to address these challenges.
The day began with an introduction to TWI by TWI’s Business Group Manager of Materials and Structural Integrity, Dr Jon Blackburn.
This was followed by a presentation on geothermal projects underway at TWI by Collaborative Programme Manager, Damien Kirkpatrick and Principal Project Leader, Dr Namrata Kale. This presentation showed how TWI, in collaboration with other partners, help to optimise and demonstrate innovations to improve the flexibility and efficiency of geothermal heat and power systems.
British Geological Survey Ground Water Modeller, Dr Corinna Abesser spoke on the UK geothermal landscape before Founder and CEO of Cornish Litium, Jeremy Wrathall spoke upon, ‘The challenges and opportunities for lithium extraction from geothermal waters in the UK.’
Markus Cechovsky from Natϋrlich Insheim GmbH (Germany), then presented on the, ‘Challenges in geothermal operations of the geothermal power plant in Insheim, Germany,’ before Ural Halaçoğlu, R&D Manager at Zorlu Enerji (Turkey), delivered a talk on, ‘Material selection from the perspective of Turkish geothermal reservoir characteristics.’
ON Power’s Head of Innovation, Kolbrún Ragna Ragnarsdóttir and Manager of Turbines and Workshop, Sæmundur Guðlaugsson closed the early morning session by discussing, ‘Challenges in geothermal power plant operation and innovative solutions.’
Guillaume Ravier, Process Engineer at ES Geothermie, France began the next round of talks with the, ‘Impact of the highly mineralized geothermal brine of the Upper Rhine Graben (URG) on surface installations and waste management,’ before TWI Section Manager for Materials Performance and Corrosion, Dr Kasra Sotoudeh spoke on how materials testing and failure analysis can help improve the sustainability of geothermal energy technologies.
Before lunch, TWI’s Surface, Corrosion, and Interface Engineering Section Manager, Dr Henry Begg then presented on, ‘Advanced coatings for materials challenges in geothermal.’
Lunch was followed by a Q&A session and a panel discussion on the ‘Importance of collaborative R&D for geothermal sustainability.’
The 20 panel meeting attendees were then given a tour of the facilities at TWI Cambridge before the productive and informative day concluded with a short wrap-up.
This panel meeting demonstrated how information exchange and the sharing of expertise helps progress the future of geothermal energy.
The GeoSmart project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme grant agreement 818576