The Queensland Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence will focus on those technologies that will quicken the pace of large-scale utilisation of hot rocks geothermal energy in Australia. The tentative aim for the industry is 4000MW baseload capacity by 2030. This is an ambitious aim and will be a world first. At the same time it is an achievable aim. Although geothermal power is not a new concept, previous activities overseas have not had the advantage of the quality of the resource in the Cooper Basin. This resource has a combination of attributes that facilitate development: it is relatively shallow; it has the hottest rocks of their type known anywhere in the world, and natural permeability; and it is free of the stability and contamination problems that beset geothermal resources arising from volcanic activity.

A geothermal power plant in the Cooper Basin would be based on circulation of water down one bore hole, through porosity in the rock (existing natural fractures) where it would be heated, and up other bore holes to above-ground heat exchangers. The water, having given up most of its thermal energy in the heat exchangers, would be pumped into the down-going bore hole for reheating by the hot rock, thereby forming a closed water circuit. The heat exchangers would heat a working fluid in another closed circuit to drive a turbine-generator set for production of electricity with no greenhouse emissions. A feature of the Cooper Basin resource is that ample water has been found to be trapped in the hot rock, obviating the need to provide water from the surface. The footprint above the ground will be environmentally benign.

In spite of the quality of the resource, there are formidable technical challenges. The Centre’s engineers and scientists will address these challenges as part of a global effort, which is represented in Australia by the Australian Geothermal Energy Group and an expanding corporate sector comprising about 16 companies.

Key collaborators will include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Adelaide, amongst others.

Together, the Centre team and its collaborators will have expertise to meet the key challenges posed by the Centre’s ambitious vision. These are:

• Optimum energy extraction and sustainable resource management;
• Efficient power conversion. The Centre will explore radically new options based on synergies with other generation technologies, especially solar-thermal and natural gas augmentation. It will also review possibilities which have been proposed in earlier research;
• A cooling system for a desert zone in the world’s driest inhabited continent. This will demand extreme efficiency at condensing the working fluid. As advances in cooling have benefits for conventional power plants, innovative platforms for cooling systems will be a significant focus of the Centre;
• To resolve transmission issues inherent to a power plant which is located more than 500km from major load centres and the national grid.

The Centre will also work with other Australian universities to introduce undergraduate and postgraduate programs to develop a skill base, and train postgraduate students. Centre alumni will be equipped to lead, not only in the geothermal sector but also in other areas of the power generation industry – which is hampered by a worldwide shortage of professional personnel.

The new Queensland Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence will help Australia become a vanguard provider of technology and expertise to the burgeoning global geothermal sector. Importantly, the knowledge and technology derived from the facility will assist the geothermal and other power sectors as they face the challenges of generating and supplying the world with clean, abundant and reliable electricity.