by Michal Kruszewski (GZB)
In General
Poland is one of the central European countries with high geothermal potential and strong interests from government as well as local authorities. The country has only low-enthalpy resources, connected in most cases with the Mesozoic sedimentary formations. Six geothermal district heating plants are currently in operation in Poland i.e. Podhale region since 1994, Pyrzyce since 1996, Mszczonów since 2000, Uniejów since 2001, Poddębice since 2012 and Stargard since 2012, with total installed capacity of 76 MWth and heat production of 227 GWh. The most attractive direct applications of geothermal energy in Poland are space heating, balneotherapy, recreational, aquaculture and other minor uses. Geothermal waters with temperatures ranging from 20 to 100°C and flow rate of up to 150 l/s are being produced from geothermal wells with total depths between 1 to 3 km. Most of deep geothermal installations are based on doublet systems, with an exception of Mszczonów and Poddębice district heating plants, where thermal water mineralization is below 500 mg/l. Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) industry, established in Poland several years ago, is in constant development and experienced immense progress since 2013, with 500 MWth installed capacity and 714 GMh of heat production as for 2015.
News
At the end of September 2017 local authorities of Szaflary, Koło, Lądek Zdrój, Sochaczew and Sieradz municipalities received large subsidies (in total 46 mln EUR) from Polish National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management (NFOŚiGW) in order to investigate and explore geothermal resources in various areas in Poland. The deepest planned exploratory well Bańska PGP-4 will be drilled in Szaflary (southern Poland) municipality with target depth of 5.3 km. The well will investigate potential resources of geothermal waters in Podhale region. It will be the fourth production well in the area and the deepest in the field. Well temperatures are expected to reach temperature of 130°C, which is around 40°C higher than temperatures from the typical wells in area drilled to 3 km depth. Such temperature will allow not only for district heating but also create possibility of electricity production, which was not yet investigated in Poland. The new well is planned to start production by the end of November 2020 and will also provide new insights about geology and reservoir conditions below current production intervals. The well will the deepest geothermal well in Poland and one of the deepest in Europe.
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