310 kW Winton geothermal power plant in Queensland, Australia starts operation
Winton geothermal plant, Queensland/ Australia (source: Green Thermal Energy Technologies, video screenshot)
Alexander Richter
23 Oct 2019
A small-scale geothermal power plant has started operations in Winton in the State of Queensland in Australia. This is the second geothermal power plant of the country and hopefully a sign for more to come.
Over the years, we have reported on a planned geothermal power plant at Winton in the State of Queensland in Australia. Financed in 2016 by the local council to the tunes of AU3.5 million (around USD 2.4m as of today), announcements of a planned start of the plant were made back in 2017 and in 2018. From the Facebook page of the company that built the plant, one can see that actual construction on site started in 2017.
It is now though reported that the plant started operations this week, October 2019.
The plant is a small 310 kW geothermal ORC plant built by Green Thermal Energy Technologies, based in Victoria/ Australia.
After the Birdsville geothermal plant and an EGS pilot plant that operated only temporarily at Habanero, this is the third geothermal power plant seeing the light of day in Australia. The Birdsville plant is not operating anymore and potential plans for a renewal of the plant were put to rest in June 2018.
So with the Winton plant, Australia is at least back on the map for geothermal power generation, but if there will be more is more than questionable.
