Nils Kock Geothermische Niedertemperaturwärme im deutschen Energiesystem

About this book deutsch english

Geothermal energy supply meets the expectations of the established criterias for sustainability from the German government because it provides a base load of electricity- and heat supply by nearly zero emissions and the geothermal resources in Germany are big enough to cover a relevant demand of the German energy supply.

In comparison to other options of using the renewable energies geothermal energy in Germany is only a small percentage of the energy supply from renewables. The geological conditions in Germany allow maximum temperatures between 160 to 170°C free well head taking techno-economic constraint into consideration. This makes an electricity production for purely technical reasons possible, but only with low efficiencies due to physical constraints. That’s why it assault big amounts of waste heat. This heat is use so far only to a very small degree and the still hot thermal water is press back into the underground without any further utilization.

In this context the aim of the thesis is to identify and quantify the low temperature heat demand in the surrounding of potential plant locations which can be supplied by the low temperature waste heat of the geothermal power plants and possibilities of convective drying at the plant location. The options for utilization of the geothermal waste heat are analyzed technical, economic and ecological for concrete case studies. The thesis is limited to the geothermal high potential areas in Germany which are the north German basin, the south German Molasse basin and the Upper-Rhine-Trench.