Warm water from flooded mines could heat homes in Wales
View over Llinfy Valley, Wales/ UK (source flickr/ Andrew Hill, creative commons)
Alexander Richter
18 Jun 2016
A small scale project is looking at deriving geothermal heat from flooded old mines to provide heating for up to 1,000 households in a community in the South of Wales/ UK.
If the project can get off the ground successfully, a community in Wales in the UK could soon heat homes with geothermal energy from flooded old mines in the neighbourhood.
As reported by Wales Online up to 1,000 homes could tap into warm water from these mines in the upper Llynfi Valley in Bridgend County in the South of Wales.
There are two ambitious projects being investigated by the local council, one of them is a biomass fueled heating scheme, and the other one is the geothermal heating project.
Feasibility studies for the geothermal project have begun, that could see water being pumped from the mine at a temperature of 10 to 14 centigrades and then being pumped to residents’ properties in close proximity.
“There, the heat will be extracted and passed through a heat pump, which will then provide heat for the property using its existing radiator system.”
These early studies have been financed by the local council and the only project in Wales taking advantage of GBP 1.5 million set aside for low carbon heat networks in the UK.
Source: Wales Online
