Cluff Geothermal attend the World Geothermal Congress, Melbourne

30th April 2015

The world’s leading geothermal businesses and academics came together for their five-yearly world congress in Melbourne, Australia in April 2015 and Cluff Geothermal – including Managing Director George Percy – were delighted to play a prominent role.

The Melbourne skyline

Two Cluff Geothermal staff members presented papers: Dr Michael Feliks spoke on the potential for direct heat geothermal projects in East Africa, and Tom Elliott gave a paper on mid enthalpy geothermal systems within the United Kingdom. Both papers were well received by the WGC.

Dr Feliks’s paper reflected Cluff Geothermal’s belief that the (understandable) focus on geothermal power projects in Africa has meant that highly affordable, relatively shallow geothermal resources are being overlooked. These could offer low cost heat production solutions at scale to agricultural and industrial heat users currently paying high prices for fuel oil.

Tom Elliott presented a summary paper of UK mid-enthalpy geothermal resources on behalf of Cluff Geothermal’s Technical Director, Professor Paul Younger (Rankine Chair of Engineering at the University of Glasgow). The paper discussed the findings of academic research into Northern England and Scotland’s geothermal resource, including results from the region’s most recent geothermal exploration boreholes.

George Delacherois Day, Cluff Geothermal’s African Business Development Manager, attended a high level meeting of senior figures in the Kenyan geothermal industry attending the conference, inputting Cluff Geothermal’s ideas on the future development of that country’s world class geothermal resource.

The papers presented by Cluff Geothermal staff can be found at:

Feliks et al.: Direct Use of Low Enthalpy Deep Geothermal Resources in the East African Rift Valley. Proceedings World Geothermal Congress 2015, Melbourne, Australia, (2015). Available at http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/107244/

Younger et al.: Renewing the Exploration Approach for Mid-Enthalpy Geothermal Systems: Examples from Northern England and Scotland. Proceedings World Geothermal Congress 2015, Melbourne, Australia, (2015). Available at http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/107240/1/107240.pdf