Geothermal Power Engineering in Russia - Today

Abstract

Russia has large resources of geothermal energy for production of electric power, provision of district heating systems for industrial and agricultural needs. Exploitation of geothermal resources, implementation of drilling operations for geothermal heat production has been carried out in Russia for more than 50 years. Today almost all the territory of this country is well investigated. It was found that numerous regions have reserves of hot water with the temperature from 50 to 200?C at depth from 200 to 3000 m. These areas are located in the European part of Russia: Central region; Northern Caucasus; Daghestan; in Siberia: lake Baikal, Krasnoyarsk region, Chukotka area, Sakhalin Island. Kamchatka Peninsula and Kuril Islands have the richest resources of geothermal power available for the production of up to 2000 MWe electricity and for more than 3000 MWt for district heating system. Pauzhetskaya Geothermal Power Plant (GeoPP) (Kamchatka) has been under interrupted operation for more than 30 years. Paratunskaya GeoPP (Kamchatka) is the first GeoPP in the world using a binary cycle. However, until 1990 geothermal power engineering was poorly developed in Russia, since the prices for oil and diesel fuel were low in this country.