Italian job

GE Oil & Gas will be supplying Graziella Green Power (GGP) with technologies for nextgeneration power stations using geothermal energy from the Tuscan geothermal district. GGP is the leading Tuscan company in the construction and management of geothermal, photovoltaic, biomass and wind energy plants.

GE’s ORegenTM technology generates electricity using steam from below the ground (‘geothermal fluids’), without any dispersal or leakage into the environment. After use, the geothermal resource – the flow of steam – can be reinjected underground in its entirety, wit zero atmospheric impact. This is a new application for this technology, which has previously been used for waste heat recovery in hydrocarbon-based plants.

GE Oil & Gas will supply a complete ORegenTM system combined with a reciprocating compressor for reinjecting the gases alongside digital solutions, built on GE’s Predix technology. This will allow for the system to be monitored constantly from a monitoring and diagnostics centre at the site in Florence, together with Houston and Kuala Lumpur centres.

In contrast with existing technologies, the plant built by Graziella Green Power will allow system optimisation, minimizing the visual impact of the site and producing an annual energy output of 40,000 MWh renewable, clean energy, equivalent to the consumption of 14,000 families. The plant should enter the operational phase in 2018.