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.
In the Caribbean Island Montserrat already three exploration wells have been drilled in the year 2014 and 2016, with the support of DFID in UK. The result was encouraging showing heat of over 200° Celsius at at 1800 meter deep, but the permeability could have been better. Following a flow test the estimated output was less than 3 MWe, which was considered below expectation.
It was Iceland Drilling Company who successfully drilled those wells under a integrated contract. That approach requires the drilling contractor to supply all related drilling services, and in addition to supply all material needed, such as casing, drilling fluid and cement.
Further development towards building a power plant has been delayed
Government of the Commonwealth of Dominica started exploration drilling on the island in the year 2011. Total of 3 exploration intermediate size wells were drilled by Iceland Drilling Company. Later additional production well with 7 inch slotted liner were drilled which was very successful giving an estimated output 7 MW.
Now in the year 2021 additional drilling is planned mainly as re-injection well is needed for the operation of a power plant which is planned to be build soon.
The principal of Enorca have negotiated and signed two drilling contracts on behalf of Iceland Drilling Company, the first one in 2010, and the second one in December 2012
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
