Academia Sinica and CPC Corp yesterday began drilling the nation’s first deep geothermal well in Yilan County’s Yuanshan Township (員山).
The 4km-deep well is expected to take 18 months to complete and has an estimated investment of NT$337 million (US$10.54 million), Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) said.
“While Taiwan has up to 30 gigawatts of potential deep geothermal energy, with an estimated 10 gigawatts being economically viable, only by digging wells can we determine the actual amount of commercially viable geothermal energy,” Liao said at the project’s opening ceremony.
Photo: Yang Yuan-ting, Taipei Times
Data collected during and after the excavation process would be used for future drilling models, helping scientists discover more economically viable heat sources and turn geothermal energy into an important part of clean energy in Taiwan, he said.
To develop and industrialize geothermal energy, relevant laws and regulations need to be updated to entice investors, as current regulations are divided among different government units, Liao said.
Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝), who also attended the ceremony, said that geothermal resources can be developed into another green energy industry, creating clean energy, job opportunities and promoting local economic prosperity.
Photo: Yang Yuan-ting, Taipei Times
Prior to the start of the drilling yesterday, a research team at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Earth Sciences worked to find potential deep geothermal energy locations, research team member Lee Jian-cheng (李建成) said.
As Taiwan is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, it is rich in geothermal resources, but “the most challenging task is finding a common location that researchers believe contains geothermal energy,” said another researcher, Huang Hsin-hua (黃信樺).
Using thermal sensing drones to analyze the distribution of heat sources, the research team chose a site on the Lanyang Plain (蘭陽平原) and discovered two sources of deep geothermal energy on either side of the Langyang River (蘭陽溪).
After building 3D models of underground heat sources over two years to pinpoint the geothermal energy locations, they chose to dig the well in Yuanshan County, as the area is more sparsely populated.
While there is confirmed geothermal energy beneath Yuanshan, “there could still be errors of several hundred meters,” Huang said. “Geothermal sources must be physically drilled to verify their existence.”
In the research team’s 3D model, the heat source reached 120°C and started generating energy at 1km to 2km deep, but for the energy to be economically viable, it needs to reach 170°C or more, which requires a depth of at least 4km, Lee said.
While the depth and range of the heat source is still uncertain, it is estimated to be able to generate 20 megawatts (MW) to 30MW of electricity, which is enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes, he said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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