Provision of clean and cost-effective geothermal energy

GECO is an innovative project aiming at offering clean geothermal energy with a lower cost. It builds upon the success of the recently completed CARBFIX project.

The goal of this GECO project is to advance greatly the ability to provide cleaner and cost-effective non-carbon emitting geothermal energy across Europe and the World. The core of this project is the application of an innovative technology, recently developed and proved successful at the pilot plant scale in Iceland that can limit the production of emissions from geothermal plants by condensing and re-injecting gases or turning the emissions into commercial products. To both increase public acceptance and to generalize this approach it will be applied by GECO in four distinct geothermal systems in four different European countries: 1) a high temperature basaltic reservoir in Iceland, 2) a high temperature gneiss reservoir in Italy, 3) a high temperature volcano-clastic reservoir in Turkey, and 4) a low temperature sandstone reservoir in Germany. A detailed and consistent monitoring program, geochemical analysis and comprehensive modelling will allow to characterize the reactivity and consequences of fluid flow in our geologically diverse field sites allowing to create new and more accurate modelling tools to predict the reactions that occur in the subsurface in response to induced fluid flow. This tool should prove invaluable to identify and develop enhanced geothermal systems in any number of rock formations, fluid compositions and temperature conditions.

This approach lead to the long-term environmentally friendly storage of waste gases, moreover an economic analysis shows that it lowers considerably the cost of cleaning geothermal gas compared to standard industry solutions.