SOGEO – Sociedade Geotermica dos Acores S.A. operates two binary geothermal plants on the island of São Miguel producing electricity with a capacity of 23 MW. Located in the Atlantic some 1,500 km west of Portugal, the Azores have a population around 300.000 people. Over half of the Azoreans live on the largest island, São Miguel. It is not long since geothermal exploitation began on São Miguel, in which Iceland Drilling Company has been mostly involved.
In Germany only low geothermal temperature areas can be found such as in Bavaria (Molasse Basin) and in Upper Rhine Valley. Suitable temperature for Binary power plants needs to be harnessed from 3000-5000 meter deep wells. Today there are over 30 geothermal energy plants in Germany. Many of them provide heat for district heating, some produce combined electricity and heat. At the end of 2020 output of electricity was 42 MW and heat was around 320 MW
The principal of Enorca has been involved in the few geothermal drilling tenders in Germany, such as for Mauerstetten, Gerestried, and Pullach.
The geothermal project in St. Vincent & the Grenadines in the Caribbean showed sufficient temperature (230-250° Celsius) in the 3 exploration wells drilled by Iceland Drilling Company in the year 2019. Unfortunately the permeability was below expectation to feed the planned geothermal power plant. The depth of the wells were from 1880 meters to 2700 meters.
The location of the wells are in La Soufriere on the northern part of St. Vincent.
On the island Montserrat in the Caribbean three exploration wells were drilled in the year 2014 and 2016, with a financial support from UK's Department for International Development (DFID) in UK. The results were promising, revealing temperature exceeding 200° Celsius at a depth of 1800 meters, but the permeability could have been better. A flow test indicated an estimated output of under 3 MWe, which was considered below expectation.
Iceland Drilling Company successfully completed these wells under an integrated contract. This approach requires that the drilling contractor handle all related drilling services and provide all material needed, such as casing, drilling fluid and cement.
Progress towards construction of a power plant has since then been delayed.
Here to the right you click on the photos to see the photos in better quality from the drilling operations.
The Government of the Commonwealth of Dominica began the first exploration drilling on the island in the year 2011. Iceland Drilling Company drilled in that phase intermediate-sized exploration wells. Only 2 years later additional production well with a 7 inch slotted liner in the production zone was successfully drilled, delivering estimated output of 7 MWe.
Then in 2024 or 10 years later additional drilling was done, and again Iceland Drilling was the contractor. The purpose was mainly to add increase the capacity and make sure enough re-injection was in place.
Enorca principal negotiated and signed two of the first drilling contracts on behalf of Iceland Drilling Company, the first one in 2010, and the second one in December 2012.
Last year, Ormat started constructing a new geothermal power plant that will use the high- enthalpy flow from the geothermal wells to produce green energy. The plant is expected to be commissioned in January 2026. This marks an important milestone which will secure the island has a stable supply of renewable base load energy.
Congratulation people of Dominica.!!
Hellisheidi geothermal power station in Hengill, Iceland is the worlds second largest geothermal power station. It has a capacity of 303 MW of electricity generation. It also supplies hot water via a pipeline to Reykjavik for space heating for households and industry. Iceland generates 100% of its electricity from renewables, aprox 70% from Hydro and 30% from geothermal.
Iceland is the home of Iceland Drilling Company. The drilling company has a extensive experience of drilling few hundreds deep geothermal wells mainly in Iceland, but also worldwide
