Geothermal Reinjection in China

Abstract

Reinjection has been widely applied in the management of geothermal resources, and is becoming a kind of routine in a lot of geothermal fields. In China, reinjection tests started in 1974 in the City of Beijing and some other places. But reinjection of used geothermal water from heating systems in scale was started in the City of Tianjin in 1990’s. Since 2000, reinjection has been taken as a more and more important aspect of geothermal resources management in China. At present, a number of reinjection projects have been in operation in Beijing and Tianjin, while in other provinces reinjection is still very little. But recently, it has been decided that geothermal will be used for district heating in a few geothermal areas such as the City of Xanyang in Shaanxi province, and Xiongxian County in Hebei province. It is certain that geothermal reinjection will be widely operated in China in the near future. In the paper, the reinjection history in China will be summarized, and the experiences and problems of reinjection in Beijing and Tianjin will be presented.