Geothermal District Heating Experience in Turkey

Abstract

Turkey is the 7th richest country in the world in geothermal potential. Most of the development is achieved in geothermal direct-use applications with 52,000 residences equivalence geothermal heating (493 MWt) including district heating, thermal facilities and nearly 500,000 m2 geothermal greenhouse heating. Geothermal water is used in 194 spas for balneological purposes (327 MWt). Engineering design of nearly 300,000 residences equivalence geothermal district heating has been completed. By summing up all this geothermal utilizations in Turkey, the installed capacity is 820 MWt for direct-use and 20.4 MWe for power production in Turkey, where a liquid carbon dioxide and dry ice production factory is integrated to Kizildere geothermal power plant with a 120,000 tons/year capacity. Geothermal district heating systems (GDHS) are the main geothermal utilization in Turkey, which have an important meaning to the Turkish citizens who are make use of this system, since, a clean environment and comfort has been provided to residences in more economic conditions. The district heating system applications have been started with large scale, city based geothermal district heating systems in Turkey, whereas, the geothermal district heating center and distribution networks have been designed according to the geothermal district heating system parameters. This constitutes an important advantage of GDHS investments in Turkey in terms of technical and economical aspects. Annually average 23% increment of residence connection to GDHS has been achieved since 1983 in Turkey.