________________________________________________________________________ DEEP
Earth Energy Production
Predictable resource
“ When we drill a large production well, we produce fluids at 120 ° C, which then go through a power generator using Organic Rankine Cycle technology. It works by passing hot brine through a heat exchanger; we harvest the heat, which is introduced to a working fluid, in our case, butane. The butane vaporizes and drives a turbine. We then cool the butane back into a liquid, creating a constant repeating cycle of the butane going in and out of liquid and vapor phases. That’ s what generates the power. We then put the brine back into the ground to reload with heat again.
“ One of the other unique aspects of our global story is that typically geothermal wells are drilled vertically into the ground. We learned early on that this limited the amount of fluid we could produce. So, we switched to a horizontal well design, which is very common in oil and gas country, where we are located. Unbeknownst to us, we were the first company in the world to drill a horizontal geothermal well.”
“ The power that we generate is sold to the only power utility we have here in Saskatchewan: SaskPower. Because geothermal provides baseload power, we are competing with carbon-intensive alternatives like coal. We have a wonderful opportunity to produce power without also producing emissions.
“ The land we control already has the potential to support at least 200 megawatts of power generation. We are doing this in phases, because to go to market, we must conduct a little more exploratory drilling. However, it’ s a very stable and predictable resource, so we’ re not expecting any big surprises.”
Significant partners
Alongside the company’ s collaboration with SLB, there have been several partnerships that have contributed to DEEP’ s success, as Kirsten explains:“ SLB has traditionally been associated with the oil and gas industry but
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