E.ON heats up plans for five deep-geothermal power plants in UK  

Business Green has a post on efforts to build geothermal heat and power plants in Britain - E.ON heats up plans for five deep-geothermal power plants. The FT also has a look at geothermal power - in their case looking at Kenya - Geothermal: Kenya pins its hopes on steam power.

The UK's nascent geothermal energy industry has today received a major boost after it emerged that one of the UK's largest energy companies is working on plans to develop five new deep geothermal heat and distribution systems.

Ireland-based geothermal technology specialist GT Energy today revealed that it has inked a memorandum of understanding with energy giant E.ON that will see the two companies jointly develop a range of urban geothermal heat power plants.

The UK currently boasts only a handful of deep geothermal power plants, including a pioneering district heat system in Southampton that has been in place since 1986. However, a number of projects are currently under construction, including plans for a new geothermal power plant in Cornwall and a geothermal heat facility in the centre of Newcastle.

E.ON and GT Energy maintain that scientific studies have shown the UK has access to up to 100GW of geothermal energy potential, particularly in the South-West, North-West, and North-East.

They have also argued that deep-geothermal technology is well suited to urban settings where the resulting heat can be easily distributed to a variety of buildings in the area.