Geothermal Energy Dry Steam Process

This steam is piped directly to a power plant and used to power turbines and generate electricity.

Geothermal energy dry steam process.

Dry steam plants are the most common types of geothermal power plants accounting for about half of the installed geothermal plants. The steam goes directly to a turbine which drives a generator that produces electricity. Also eliminating the need to transport and store fuels this is the oldest type of geothermal power plant. Geothermal power plants require high temperature 300 f to 700 f hydrothermal resources that come from either dry steam wells or from hot water wells.

The hot water or steam powers a turbine that generates electricity. Dry steam power plants rely on natural underground sources of steam. Today the dry steam power plants at larderello continue to supply electricity to more than a million residents of the area. Dry steam is the oldest type of power plant to generate electricity using geothermal energy.

People use these resources by drilling wells into the earth and then piping steam or hot water to the surface. The first dry steam power plant was constructed in larderello italy in 1911. This video explains the concept and working operation of a dry steam type geothermal power station. Dry steam power plants systems were the first type of geothermal power generation plants built they were first used at lardarello in italy in 1904.

This is the oldest type of power plant to generate electricity from geothermal energy it was first constructed in italy in 1911 2 3. They work by piping hot steam from underground reservoirs directly into turbines from geothermal reservoirs which power the generators to provide electricity. Power plants produce geothermal energy by utilizing geothermal dry steam or geothermal hot water accessed by digging wells. Steam technology is still effective today at currently in use at the geysers in northern california the world s largest single source of geothermal power.

About 6 percent of the energy used in northern california is produced at 28 dry steam reservoir plants found at the geysers dry steam fields in northern california. We answer questions such as. What is a dry steam geotherm. Dry steam or hot water is brought to the surface through pipes and processed into electricity in the power plant.

At peak production these dry steam geothermal power plants are the world s largest single source of geothermal power producing up to 2 000 megawatts of electricity an hour. The steam eliminates the need to burn fossil fuels to run the turbine.