| Title | Geothermal Research and Development in Korea |
|---|---|
| Authors | Yoonho Song, Youngmin Lee, Hyoung-Chan Kim and Tae Jong Lee |
| Year | 2008 |
| Conference | Asian Geothermal Symposium |
| Keywords | geothermal, geothermal heat pump, groundwater, geothermal assessment, Korea |
| Abstract | Geothermal utilization in Korea has been of direct-use, mainly in public baths with low-temperature geothermal water from a hundred wells hitting deeply-connected fractures. Recently we identified a geothermal anomaly in terms of high heat flow and geothermal gradient at the Tertiary sediment area in the south-eastern part of the Korean Peninsula, where the first low-temperature geothermal development project is currently being carried out by the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) for the purpose of application to district heating. Geothermal heat pump installation is now booming; the number of installations and total produced energy approximately double every year. Among the increasing geothermal heat pump installations, groundwater thermal energy utilization attracts attention in that the temperature and amount of groundwater from many existing wells varies little throughout the year. In Korea, for example, the amount of groundwater used for residence and industry in 2007 was 5.5 million m /day, which can be utilized 3 for heating and cooling buildings nearby with groundwater-source heat pump system. The fact that it does not require any drilling cost when connecting heat pumps to existing groundwater well heads or pipe lines, offers great opportunity for expanding geothermal utilization. There are also several ongoing Research, Development and Demonstration (RD&D) works for utilizing thermal energy of alluvial groundwater in urban and suburban areas. The fact that the thermal properties of subsurface such as thermal conductivity and volumetric heat capacity are the main factors controlling heat exchange rate in borehole heat exchanger was the motivator to initiate a nation-wide thermal property compiling program in which a total of 1,516 rock samples have been collected, measurements been done and then compiled into database system. First geothermal assessment ever tried in Korea has been recently made and the result shows that the total amount of heat down to 5 km beneath Korean territory reaches 105 EJ which corresponds to ten thousand times the annual primary |