Geothermal prospects in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Geothermal energy development in the UK has been limited, partly due to the lack of high enthalpy resources, but also due to the availability of cheap fossil fuels during the 1980s and 1990s. However, with the advent of renewable energy sources to combat climate change and the need to replace diminishing fossil fuels, geothermal is now in a good position to contribute to the energy mix. In this paper, some of the geothermal prospects are reviewed and some recent work from the British Geological Survey in the following areas is presented: • The potential of combined heat and groundwater flow modeling and the latest three-dimensional geological models are being assessed for use in ground source heat pump prospecting. • Temperatures in the shallow sub-surface have been collated and compared to modeled results in order to identify thermal anomalies that would be advantageous for direct use applications or ground source heat pumps. • There is renewed interest in EGS within the granite batholith of southwestern England, and a reappraisal of the Hot Dry Rock potential of the Scottish granites suggests that this resource may have been underestimated