Four major problems remain to be solved in the prospect of geothermal power generation

With the improvement of science and technology, human beings have a deeper understanding of the importance and potential of geothermal resources. The biggest advantage of geothermal is its stability, continuity and high utilization rate. If the traditional development model is broken through, the potential of geothermal resources will be enormous, which will bring good news for human energy development.

Vigorously develop clean energy is one of the themes of today's times, which is why the global geothermal resources development and utilization of the upsurge. With the development of social economy and the progress of science and technology, human understanding of geothermal resources will be further improved, and the prospect of geothermal power generation is worth looking forward to.

China's geothermal resources are relatively rich, mainly in low temperature, almost all provinces and autonomous regions, geothermal resource potential accounts for 7.9% of the world. According to statistics, the total amount of underground hot water resources that can be developed and utilized in the country every year is 6.845 billion m3, and the thermal energy contained is 972.28×1015J, equivalent to the calorific value of about 32.848 million tons of standard coal per year.

Geothermal energy utilization includes two ways of power generation and heat utilization, among which geothermal power generation, as one of the cleanest power generation technologies, has great potential to become a renewable energy that can be rapidly commercialized and connected to the grid. In addition, geothermal power is arguably the most reliable (even stronger than hydropower) renewable energy source, can continuously deliver electricity to the grid, unlike other methods of intermittency and uncertainty, almost completely unaffected by the climate.

Based on these points, the global geothermal power industry is growing rapidly. By the end of 2015, the cumulative installed capacity of global geothermal power generation reached 13.40GW, an increase of 5.51% over the previous year.

Specifically, the United States geothermal energy utilization technology development and utilization early, in the world's leading position. By 2015, the cumulative installed geothermal power capacity in the United States had reached 3,953 MW.

Although China has ranked first in the world in the direct development and utilization of geothermal non-electricity, its installed capacity of geothermal power generation ranks 16th in the world. The main reason is that the geothermal resources suitable for power generation in China are concentrated in Tibet and Yunnan, the local hydropower resources are rich, the geothermal power generation competitiveness is not strong, and it is difficult to large-scale development in the near future.

Geothermal power generation development issues

The biggest advantage of geothermal is its stability, continuity and high utilization rate, but the traditional development mode of geothermal power generation mainly relies on manual exploration to find natural underground steam or hot spring areas, which makes the utilization of geothermal energy limited.

Therefore, although geothermal has irreplaceable advantages, compared with the rapid development of wind and solar energy, the development and utilization of geothermal is often ignored. Fundamentally, there are four major problems in geothermal power generation.

First, the development of geothermal utilization technology is seriously unbalanced. Although China's geothermal medium and low temperature utilization technology has reached the international leading level, the high temperature utilization is still poor compared with the international level, and it needs to continue to increase investment.

Secondly, the degree of geothermal exploration in China is relatively low, so far there has been no thorough mapping of geothermal resources.

Third, geothermal power has a very high initial investment cost, prior to drilling, exploration and other processes will account for 11% of the development cost of a geothermal project, drilling accounted for about 30%.

Finally, human resources are scarce. At present, China's geothermal talents are facing the dilemma of scarcity, and the shortage of talents will become the main obstacle to the future development of the geothermal power generation industry.

Geothermal power development potential

In general, as a renewable and clean energy, geothermal energy has been included in the "13th Five-Year Plan" energy plan, and geothermal power generation has broad prospects. As a stable energy source with no emissions and no consumption, geothermal power generation can become a powerful backing for geothermal power generation in China with relatively advanced onshore oil and gas drilling technology and equipment.

According to China's "renewable energy Medium and Long Term development Plan", China's installed capacity of geothermal power generation is expected to reach 70GW by 2050. If geothermal power generation is replaced by coal-fired power generation, it will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1 billion tons per year by 2050, and if it is replaced by natural gas power generation, it can reduce 500 million tons per year.

In addition, enhanced geothermal system technology is still in the experimental stage, but if successful and widely used, geothermal power development potential is enormous.