| Abstract |
Geothermal district heating is defined as the use of one or more production fields as sources of heat to supply thermal energy to a group of buildings. Services available from a district heating system are space heating, domestic water heating, space cooling, and industrial process heat. A district heating system is not limited to a particular type heat source. Heat sources that could be used for a district heating system include co-generating power plants, conventional boilers, municipal incinerators, solar collectors, groundwater heat pumps, industrial waste heat sources, and geothermal fields. Depending on the temperature of geothermal fields, it may be advantageous to develop a hybrid system including, in addition to geothermal, a heat pump and/or conventional boiler for peaking purposes. A geothermal district heating system comprises three major components, as shown in Figure 1. The first part is heat production which includes the geothermal production and recharge fields, conventional fueled peaking station, and wellhead heat exchanger. The second part is the transmission/distribution system, which delivers the geothermal fluid or geothermally heated water to the consumers. The third part includes central pumping stations and in-building equipment. Geothermal fluids may be pumped to a central pumping station/heat exchanger or heat exchangers in each building. Thermal storage tanks may be used to meet variations in demand. |