SPE event to facilitate important conversations for geothermal in Canada
"SPE Workshop: Heating Up Geothermal Innovation and Development in Canada" by the Society of Petroleum Engineers
Carlo Cariaga
10 Sep 2024
The SPE is inviting everyone to an upcoming workshop that seeks to help come up with novel and innovative approaches for geothermal development in Canada.
In a few days, the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) will be holding the “SPE Workshop: Heating Up Geothermal Innovation and Development in Canada.” The event is set to take place on the 17th and 18th of September 2024 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
With an emerging geothermal industry that requires innovative approaches and “out-of-the-box” solutions, the event provides an important platform for stakeholders to exchange knowledge and address the unique challenges of the Canadian geothermal market.
The full agenda of the SPE Geothermal Workshop can be accessed via this link. Registration to the event is also still open. Click here to register.
Building interest in the Canadian geothermal industry
The Canadian geothermal sector has started to build momentum in recent years, particularly with the ongoing work being done by DEEP Earth Energy Production Corp. (DEEP) in Saskatchewan, as well as early exploratory work being done in several sites in the British Columbia region.
The abundance of oil and gas resources in Canada, as well as hydropower, has meant that interest in geothermal has not been at a high level in the past. This has changed in recent times as Canada experienced a drought that has drastically reduces its supply of hydroelectric energy. With the geothermal sector gaining momentum, the SPE Workshop serves as a focal point for stakeholders to come together and come up with solutions to the unique challenges of the region.
“The purpose of the workshop is to get interest heated up for geothermal in Canada, “ said Mario Martinez, Business Development at Ormat Technologies and C0-Chairperson of the event.
“We want to get all the people who are interested to come together and share their expertise. And SPE is leading this initiative, because there is plenty of experience in drilling techniques from oil and gas that the geothermal sector could benefit from.”
The value of innovation
In a region that is not well-known for having high-temperature geothermal resources, innovative and novel approaches will undoubtedly play huge roles in Canada’s geothermal development. Exploring these opportunities is one of the goals of the workshop.
“The workshop aims to bring all these thoughts together on how to exploit geothermal. It’s not always electricity generation. There are options for offsetting electricity by using the available heat, whether it’s for direct heating or greenhouses to cultivate produce during the cold weather seasons. There is even work being done at aquaponics using geothermal. There is a huge array of technologies that need to come in to utilize this natural resource,” added Martinez.
Efforts to develop unconventional geothermal systems are underway in Canada. Notable examples include GreenFire Energy signing a partnership to deploy the GreenLoop technology to Western Canada, a hybrid geothermal-natural gas power plant in Alberta by FutEra Power, and a roadmap recently published by the Cascade Institute for ultradeep geothermal power for commercial operations.
Canada-based Eavor Technologies is, of course, at the advanced stages of the first commercial deployment of their Eavor-Loop technology in Geretsried, Germany. The company is also involved in the geothermal drilling test facility, the Alberta Drilling Accelerator, that the government of Alberta has started investing on.
“New technologies really need to be developed for the geothermal resources of Canada. Once those are proven to be sustainable across Canada, I think there will be more backing for them financially and more investment into the technologies,” said April Cote, Event Specialist at SPE. “Companies like Eavor and GreenFire are pioneers that are leading the way in terms of getting us to where we eventually need to be to harness these sustainable resources.”
“How do we get everybody else as passionate about it as we are?”
“I’ll be honest, it’s been very clear to stir up interest for geothermal in Canada,” said Martinez. “With this event, we are trying to reach everybody that has done something in geothermal in Canada. We hope that his helps get the wheels rolling so that the sector can start growing. I don’t think Canada will get to the point of being a world leader in geothermal, but we can be a leader in how we utilize our low-temperature resources with the technologies that are being developed.”
“SPE Canada thinks that this an important topic that needs to be discussed,” further added Cote. “This is why we are bringing all these passionate geothermal people together in a room to talk about how the geothermal industry in Canada can move forward. All these knowledge coming together hopefully brings about ideas on using these new technologies.”
“How do we move forward and get this going? How do we get everybody else as passionate about geothermal as we are?”
In a region that has traditionally been drilling for oil and gas, building a geothermal sector will have to start as a grassroots movement. The upcoming SPE Workshop provides the opportunity for experts in various fields to come together, particularly leveraging the country’s considerable oil and gas expertise, to come up with novel solutions to harness the geothermal resources of Canada.
