Geothermal energy is used in three main ways: direct use, power generation, and ground source heating and cooling. Depending on its characteristics, geothermal energy can be used for heating and cooling purposes or be harnessed to generate clean electricity.
Direct capture carbon technologies (such as the technology from Climeworks) are becoming more popular, which uses geothermal brine as a heating source.
There are different geothermal technologies with distinct levels of maturity. Technologies for direct uses like district heating, geothermal heat
pumps, greenhouses, and for other applications are widely used and can be considered mature. Medium temperature fields are more and more used for electricity generation or for combined heat and power thanks to the development of binary cycle technology, in which geothermal fluid is used via heat exchangers to heat a process fluid in a closed loop.
Fouling remains as one of the key challenging issues in geothermal energy applications. As per our experience, the major contributors to geothermal brine fouling is the scaling of silica and calcium carbonate. Regions with higher temperature brine have higher fouling issues potential. Due to fouling potential of the brine and high operational costs some geothermal resources have not been considered. With the self-cleaning fluidized bed heat exchanger technology, you can explore options to utilize geothermal brine in the most efficient way. Contact us to learn more about it.