In a bid to accelerate climate neutrality by 2035, Finland is exploring the adoption of Geothermal energy as a promising alternative to coal.
The country has already taken a major step towards geothermal, with a well drilled to a depth of 6,400 meters in the city of Espoo, outside Helsinki, by energy company ST1, the first industrial scale emission-free geothermal energy heating plant in Finland.
The pilot project is seeking to extract bedrock heat for use in district heating by drilling two boreholes to a depth of several kilometres. Water will be pumped down one of these boreholes for underground geothermal heating, with the resulting hot water then extracted via the other borehole. The heating plant will feed this heat into the local district heating network.
The aim of the St1 Deep Heat pilot project is to build Finland's first geothermal energy-based heating plant in the area of Fortum's heating plant in Otaniemi. If successful, the pilot project could revolutionize the way heat is produced in Finland.
When completed, it will be the world's deepest geothermal heat production plant, producing heat without emissions. The plant's production is planned to cover up to 10% of the district heating demand in the city of Espoo.