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Small geothermal power plant to start this year in Winton, Queensland, Australia

Small geothermal power plant to start this year in Winton, Queensland, Australia ORC unit being set up in Winton, Queensland, Australia (source: screenshot, gTET website)
Alexander Richter 17 Oct 2017

A small 310 kW geothermal ORC power plant will be starting operations December 2017 in the small town of Winton in the state of Queensland, Australia.

In December last year we reported on a small geothermal power project in the state of Queensland in Australia.  Now new details emerging announcing a start of operation in December this year.

With the new plant, the municipality of Winton plans to save up to AU$15 million (US$12 million) per year in energy consumption.  According to a local article, the plant has been designed by the consultancy of Local Government Infrastructure Services.

The plant will be using hot water from existing wells providing naturally available hot water. The cost of the plant is estimated at AU$3.5 million. There are four other rural and remote councils in this region of Australia that are looking into utilising geothermal resources for power generation. About AU$35 million have been borrowed by the Local Government Association of Queensland for plants in Quilppie, Thargomindah, Normanton and Longreach.

The water in the bore wells is around 80 degrees Celsius and requires drilling deeper to derive somewhat hotter temperatures which could be used for power generation.

The Winton geothermal project will receive two 155 kW ORC power plants to be provided by gTET (green Thermal Energy Technologies) with base load (24 h/day) and peak load (14h/day) capability. gTET is a privatly owned company from Australia.

Source: The Australian, Intersearch (pdf), gTET, dsgnk