A City of Two Tales: Geothermal District Heating Times Two, Elko, Nevada, USA

Abstract

Public ownership and operation or private ownership and operation - direct connection or indirect connection? These questions have been asked, and often hotly debated, for years by those engaged in the business of developing and operating geothermal district energy systems.
In few places in the world can the pros and cons, benefits and disadvantages of the different approaches to district energy development and operation be better evaluated than in Elko, Nevada, U.S.A. In Elko, we find a privately owned and operated district heating system built in 1982 that distributes geothermal brine directly to individual customers and a publicly owned and operated system built in 1986 that is based on isolating the distribution network from the geothermal brine through the use of a plate and frame heat exchanger. Both systems tap into the same geothermal reservoir.
Now, after some twenty years of operation, is it possible to pick a clear winner? The answer is not as clear as either side might imagine or desire, but the answer does provide important insights and possibly direction for future project development and system operation.