Geothermal
Geothermal technology uses energy from the earth’s crust to generate heat or electricity. The energy can be
accessed by drilling wells into underground reservoirs to bring the hot geothermal fluid to the surface. The heat
can then be converted into electricity or used directly in heating applications.
In the geothermal field, the term “energy conversion” refers to power-plant technology that converts the heat
of geothermal fluids into electricity. There are three types of geothermal power plants currently in operation: dry
(or direct) steam, flash steam and binary-cycle plant. The plant type depends on the
specific location of the
geothermal resource. Due to the variation in resources, such as composition, pressure
and temperature of the
geothermal fluid, geothermal power plants must be designed according to an assessment of the site-specific
conditions in order to optimize the power generation efficiency. Unlike wind and solar power, electricity gener-
ated from geothermal sources is not intermittent, which means that it can provide reliable base-load power.
