| Abstract |
n Poland since the half of 1980-ties led to the opening of five geothermal plants: in Podhale, in Pyrzyce, Mszczon?w, Uniej?w and Stargard Szczeci?ski. Moreover, several installations operate based upon groundwaters of temperatures below 25oC and several hundreds of installations are in use based upon heat pumps and ground thermal energy. Geothermal energy is practically not used for recreation although climatic and hydrogeothermal conditions in Poland are similar to those in adjacent Slovakia where water centers and therapeutic pools became an important branch of national economy. Recently, projects are at various stages of design in Poland (Podhale and Central Poland), which will utilize geothermal waters for recreation. Installations mentioned above were classified into three groups (Tab. 1.5.1). Group I includes plants utilizing waters of temperatures reaching several tens of Celsius degrees. Group II comprises balneotherapeutic installations and group III contains heat pumps systems, for which working media are groundwaters and ground of temperatures below 25oC. The 25oC threshold was assumed as conventional value because this is practically the maximum temperature of lower source for effectively working compressor heat pumps. According to data for January 1st, 2006, the installed thermal power of all geothermal plants in Poland (including heat pumps) amounted about 210 MWt and the annual heat generation was a the level of 1 108 TJ/year |