Thrives Renewables to invest in UK’s first geothermal power plant

Thrives Renewables has agreed to invest up to £6.5 million in the UK’s first geothermal power station in Cornwall.

The plant located on the United Downs industrial estate in Redruth is expected generate around 3MW of electricity and 12MW of heat.

Two boreholes have already been drilled by the developer Geothermal Engineering – one to a depth of 5.1 kilometres, making it the deepest onshore well in the UK. The wells will extract heat from a geological structure called the Porthtowan Fault at temperatures expected to exceed 190°C.

The funding from Thrives Renewables will be used to complete testing on the wells, which have already been shown to be suitable for electricity generation, and then build the plant itself.

Managing director Matthew Clayton said: “We are thrilled to provide the finance needed for UK’s first geothermal electric power plant to become a commercial reality.

“This is a truly ground-breaking project. It’s the first time that we have been able to generate renewable electricity using natural heat from the earth in the UK.

“This pioneering project taps a constant natural resource, providing baseload renewable electricity, a crucial component of the UK’s clean energy generation mix.

“The project’s potential to generate and distribute heat will also contribute to the enormous challenge of decarbonising the UK’s heat consumption.”

“We hope that this will be the start of many similar initiatives across the region,” added Ryan Law, managing director of Geothermal Engineering.

Geothermal plants account for around 12.GW of electricity generation capacity around the world. None is located in the UK, although geothermal energy is used to supply a heat network in Southampton city centre. It will also be used to supply a heat network under construction in Stoke-on-Trent.