The afternoon session looked at the potential for developing geothermal power plants. Arizona Public Service, the state's largest electric utility, and Ormat, the nation's largest geothermal plant developer, went through the requirements needed.
The workshop was organized by Leisa Brug, the Governor's Energy Policy Advisor and her staff.
I spoke in the morning giving an overview of the state's geothermal energy potential including power generation, direct-use (space heating, aquaculture, etc) and GSHP, and describing the National Geothermal Data System that we are helping build and deploy. We got offers at the meeting from half a dozen companies to contribute data on their geothermal installations to the database for Arizona, that can help everyone better evaluate and calculate system requirements.
The day ended with a great roundtable among the group about what's needed to speed up geothermal energy development in Arizona. At a minimum, the networking during the day offered some connections for sharing information and data and a consensus that further meetings of the group will be of great value.
This is such a great event! I am glad that you were successful in gathering people from the industry to listen to the new advancements. I went to Stockton College, where we had geothermic energy heat our water. It is quite fascinating to see the earth giving back to its inhabitants. What types of heating repair requirements are necessary for the device that controls the energy? I hope you made great progress at your conference. It looks like this group is doing great work.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking in to how to live off the grid and was hoping to find some sort of classes / workshops coming up soon in my area that could help give me some direction.What happens to the heat released to the ground in these systems? I am wondering how you can continue to dump heat into the ground without it heating up and runining the efficiency of the system?
ReplyDeleteIt’s so great to hear that events like this gather the geothermal industry and gives the opportunity to talk about geothermal power and its potential. Conferences like these are ways to come up with innovative solutions on the challenges that the geothermal industry faces.
ReplyDeleteJoven from bulusan geothermal