| Title | Low Carbon Geothermal Heat Energy – Geoheat in New Zealand. Advancing Decarbonisation of Industrial, Commercial and Horticultural Process Heat |
|---|---|
| Authors | Samantha Alcaraz, Brian Carey, Yale Carden, Celia Wells, Greg Moore, Mark Gibson |
| Year | 2026 |
| Conference | World Geothermal Congress |
| Keywords | |
| Abstract | Geothermal heat offers quite some opportunity to decarbonise process heat applications where generally across New Zealand this covers process heat at temperatures of up to 120oC, and possibly160oC using heat pumps, and in specific locations at the high temperature geothermal fields in the central part of the North Island, process heat at temperatures up to 220oC can be supplied directly from geothermal resources. GNS Science, Dobbie Engineers and GeoExchange NZ contributed to the geothermal section of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority’s (EECA) Bay of Plenty Regional Energy Transition Accelerator published in 2024. Two sites and three applications across the broader Bay of Plenty Region were analysed with net emissions reductions of about 90% compared to the fossil fuels currently being used. In the Marginal Abatement Cost optimal pathway EECA identified Geothermal as the optimal fuel for all five cases analysed. The sites analysed included a hospital and a greenhouse and the applications considered where a salt drying application, a milk processing application and a paper machine conversion. The paper canvasses the work reported and the benefits that geothermal offers as New Zealand works on decarbonising process heat. |