Grangemouth area, Scotland
There are numerous locations onshore Scotland where groundwater in the temperature range 70-100 degrees Centigrade can be brought to surface in significant quantities by producer wells drilled to 2000-2500 metres, and if it were run through a modern ORC heat exchanger (we explain what this is, below) the resulting vapour can spin a twin turbine set for commercial electricity generation. This ORC technology wasn’t available in previous decades: but it is now.
The old“hot rocks only” deep-drilling approach for geothermal projects is history. The low-temperature variant hasn’t been applied yet in UK but geothermal ORC is working commercially in the USA (Alaska), Mexico (Cerro Prieto), Germany (Bruchsal), Caribbean (Nevis). Some major international projects are in advanced planning stage: India’s Cambay Basin for example, huge potential.