Geothermal Energy Dry Steam Power Plant

Flash steam plants take high pressure hot water from deep inside the earth and convert it to steam to drive generator turbines.

Geothermal energy dry steam power plant. In flash steam power plants pressurized high temperature water is drawn from beneath the surface into containers at the surface called flash tanks where the sudden decrease in pressure causes the liquid water to flash or. Other power plants built around the flash steam and binary cycle designs use a mixture of steam and heated water wet steam extracted from the ground to. Dry steam power plants systems were the first type of geothermal power generation plants built they were first used at lardarello in italy in 1904. All geothermal power plants use steam to turn large turbines which run electrical generators.

This steam travels from the production well to the surface and through a turbine and after transferring its energy to the turbine it condenses and is injected back into the earth. In other areas of the state super hot water is flashed into steam within the power plant and that steam turns the turbine. Steam technology is still effective today at currently in use at the geysers in northern california the world s largest single source of geothermal power. Dry steam plants use steam directly from a geothermal reservoir to turn generator turbines.

The first geothermal power plant was built in 1904 in tuscany italy where natural steam erupted from the earth. In such dry steam operations the heated water vapour is funneled directly into a turbine that drives an electrical generator. In the geysers geothermal area dry steam from below ground is used directly in the steam turbines. At peak production these dry steam geothermal power plants are the world s largest single source of geothermal power producing up to 2 000 megawatts of electricity an hour.

Dry steam plants are the most common types of geothermal power plants accounting for about half of the installed geothermal plants. About 6 percent of the energy used in northern california is produced at 28 dry steam reservoir plants found at the geysers dry steam fields in northern california. These types are the oldest types of geothermal power plants the first one was built back in 1904 in italy. These plants use dry steam that is naturally produced in the ground.