Geothermal power plants generating electricity from thermal energy of the underground sources are usually located near geysers that throw out hot water fountains. However, a geyser field is a geologically rare phenomenon. The largest fields are located at Kamchatka, in Iceland, New Zealand, in the Chilean Atacama Desert and in the American Yellowstone Park. Therefore, the geography of the geothermal energy use still remains narrow: the global installed capacity of geothermal power plants reached 15.6 GW by the end of 2021, of which one third (5.8 GW) were in Russia, Iceland, New Zealand, Chile and the United States.
The energy of the underground geysers located at the depth of over 6 km may change the situation. The arrangement of a new type of geothermal power plant will be made in several stages. First, two wells are drilled up to the underground geyser location detected by fiber optics, one of which will serve for cold water pumping, and the second – for raising the heated liquid. The hot water will be supplied to the steam power plant. Used, chilled and purified water will then be pumped underground again, where it will be heated in the geyser.
If commercially implemented, the innovation can contribute to solution of the problem of uninterruptible supply of renewable energy. The U.S. geothermal utilisation reached 71% in 2021, compared with 35 percent and 25 percent for wind turbines and solar panels, respectively, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Integration of these three sources can reduce the risks of power outages during high-demand hours.
