Work on geothermal energy development in Poland – an update
Smog over Warsaw, Poland - Picture November 2015 (source: flickr/ Radek Ko?akowski, creative commons)
Alexander Richter
24 Aug 2018
Geothermal energy provides a great opportunity in cleaning up the heating sector in Poland, and there are great efforts on development and utilisation of geothermal in the country, as a recent article shared by the International Geothermal Association highlights.
The International Geothermal Association (IGA) has published an article by Michal Kruszewski of the Geothermal Center in Bochum, Germany, which provides a good update on the status of geothermal energy utilisation and development in Poland.
Poland is one of the central European countries with high geothermal potential and strong interests from government as well as local authorities. The country has only low-enthalpy resources, connected in most cases with the Mesozoic sedimentary formations. Six geothermal district heating plants are currently in operation in Poland i.e. Podhale region since 1994, Pyrzyce since 1996, Mszczonów since 2000, Uniejów since 2001, Podd?bice since 2012 and Stargard since 2012, with total installed capacity of 76 MWth and heat production of 227 GWh.
The most attractive direct applications of geothermal energy in Poland are space heating, balneotherapy, recreational, aquaculture and other minor uses. Geothermal waters with temperatures ranging from 20 to 100°C and flow rate of up to 150 l/s are being produced from geothermal wells with total depths between 1 to 3 km. Most of deep geothermal installations are based on doublet systems, with an exception of Mszczonów and Podd?bice district heating plants, where thermal water mineralization is below 500 mg/l. Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) industry, established in Poland several years ago, is in constant development and experienced immense progress since 2013, with 500 MWth installed capacity and 714 GMh of heat production as for 2015.
The article then provides a great update on recent development and an outlook on the future of geothermal energy in Poland.
With the next Climate Change meetings of COP to be held in Poland there is a great opportunity to promote geothermal energy and its role in cleaning up a coal-dominated heating sector. IGA and others urge the Polish government to add the topic of geothermal energy as key themes into the meetings for the fall of this year.
For the full article see link below.
Author Contact: michal.kruszewski@hs-bochum.de
Source: IGA
