Earthmover and Civil Contractor
June, 2008 Page: 60
The 12 permanent residents of Innamincka in South Australia's far north are about to have free electricity for years to come.
THE TINY outback town 1065km north east of Adelaide, has always relied on diesel generators. The annual power bill of $200,000 will soon to be a thing of the past when free, hot fractured rock (HFR) geothermal energy arrives, courtesy of GeoDynamics Limited. HFR geothermal energy is produced using heat extracted from buried hot granites by circulating waters through an engineered, artificial reservoir or underground heat exchanger. The company has created the largest such reservoir in the world at its Cooper Basin site near Innamincka in north east SA.
Executive director Dr Doone Wyborn has declared that GeoDynamics will trial the technology at the town before looking to expand its operations throughout Australia. "By the end of this year we expect to have a 1MW power station up and running which will provide Innamincka with electricity as early as possible in 2009," he states. The project will require a transmission line from the power station to the township, a distance of 11km, and upgrading all connections to the buildings.
State Premier Mike Rann, who visited the site recently, said it was a glimpse of an exciting future for SA. "Dr Wyborn believes that this area in our state's north could supply a very significant part of Australia's baseload power in coming years. He believes the capacity of the area to be the equivalent of the world's entire existing geothermal power source." The premier said nearly $700m would be invested in the state's geothermal resources within five years. To speed up applications for geothermal leases and exploration, the government had allocated a further $3.325m over four years.
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