The UK’s first ever geothermal power plant will be going live today, bringing a new source of low-carbon energy generation onto the electricity grid.
The United Downs power station, which is being developed by GEL Energy, is based in Cornwall and will produce around 3MW of power. While the amount of energy produced is relatively low compared to other baseload generators, GEL has two additional deep geothermal sites under development, which will deliver a further 10MW by 2030.
The British Geological Survey has calculated that more than 200GW of thermal heat, hot enough to generate power, could be produced from onshore geothermal sources. To put that in perspective, the upcoming Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant will generate around 3.2GW when it comes online in the early 2030s.
Nevertheless, the technology comes with a number of restrictions, with high-temperature geothermal resources mostly located in tectonically active regions, which limits where large-scale projects are viable. Drilling...