Hot Sedimentary Aquifer (HSA) Exploration and Development in Australia
Tue, 04 Oct
|Live Webinar
This talk will review the relevant history of HSA projects in Australia and then provide an up-to-date look at new efforts to exploit HSA in Australia, including recent high-impact exploration bid rounds in multiple states.
Time & Location
04 Oct 2022, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm AWST
Live Webinar
About the event
Geothermal energy from Hot Sedimentary Aquifers (HSA) has significant potential in Australia. To date, the potential has been realized in multiple, small-scale (1-2.5 MW-th), direct use projects in the Perth Basin in Western Australia (WA) and in the Otway and Gippsland Basins in Victoria (VIC). These projects were limited by demand, not resource; current projects, planned at scales of 5-25 MW-th, include large-scale greenhouse projects in WA, aquaculture in VIC, and district heating in South Australia.
In contrast, commercial power generation has been more elusive. The Birdsville power plant in Queensland successfully generated 80 kW-e for ~20 years, but other attempts to realize the potential, such as the Salamander-1 (2010) and Celsius-1 (2011) exploration wells and the Winton power project in Queensland, were, or are currently, commercially unviable. These latter projects represent significant learnings for the Australian geothermal industry, analogous to ‘dry holes’ in oil and gas exploration.
Based on these…