BASELOAD GEOTHERMAL POWER

Geothermal energy is a renewable resource that provides energy right from the ground, all around the world. The heat of the earth is literally directly under your feet and available everywhere. New ways of harnessing perhaps the greatest of all renewable energy resources are constantly being developed, and we’re learning new and better ways to apply it from a number of circumstances. Geothermal energy is perhaps the most significant renewable resource because the heat is essentially limitless and flows continuously; 24 x 7 x 365 (or “base-load”) from Mother Earth’s interior. It is estimated that over 42 Million Megawatts (MW) of power is available and expected to power the planet for billions of years to come… truly inexhaustible energy!

Science Not Magic

To develop renewable generated electricity from geothermal resources, wells are drilled into a geothermal reservoir (the heat in the geothermal reservoir is the fuel that drives us). The wells allow a conduit to bring the geothermal fluid to the surface, where the heat energy is converted into electricity efficiently with TAS Energy’s Geothermal-to-Power (G2P) plant systems. TAS has forged many patented and exciting advancements in geothermal energy conversion technology that now make it possible to economically produce electricity from geothermal fluids from 90°C (200°F) to greater than 200°C (400°F). The TAS closed loop systems make it possible to reduce geothermal energy’s already low emission rate to zero… zero output, emission free producers. The TAS G2P is also safe and environmentally benign.

Different Types of Geothermal

There are several different types of geothermal energy that can be converted to clean renewable power, for example:

• Conventional Hydrothermal: is defined as the development of a geothermal resource where levels of geothermal reservoir temperature and reservoir flow capacity are naturally sufficient to produce electricity.

• Geothermal Energy and Hydrocarbon Co-production: is defined as the utilization of produced fluids resulting from oil and/or gas-field development for the production of geothermal power.

• Geopressured Systems: is defined as the utilization of kinetic energy, hydrothermal energy, and energy produced from the associated gas resulting from geopressured gas development to produce geothermal electricity.

Heat to Power Technology Overview

Rankine and Organic Rankine Cycles

The traditional approach to generate electricity from heat is to use steam turbines (the steam rankine cycle). Although effective, steam turbines require high quality heat; high temperatures. Over 90% of the United States waste heat opportunities are from heat of low to moderate temperatures below what steam turbines require. Technology currently developed that has been deployed in the geothermal industry for over 100 years based on the organic rankine cycle is capable of capturing low temperature, low quality heat. The organic rankine cycle differs from the steam rankine cycle because it uses an organic carbon based working fluid. Whereas the steam rankine cycle’s working fluid is water, the organic rankine cycle’s fluid is often a refrigerant with a lower boiling point temperature capable of capturing lower temperature heat.

Innovating Advanced Solutions

Power Generation, Meet Refrigeration

Interestingly, the organic rankine cycle as over-viewed above shares similarities with the refrigeration cycle, in fact the cycle is nearly the same, only running in reverse. This is important because TAS Energy is the recognized global leader in highly efficient refrigeration and cooling solutions for power generation, data centers and commercial comfort cooling. With TAS Energy’s market leading and patented designs, and experience around the world, TAS Energy engineers were a natural fit for taking on the challenge of designing the market’s most advanced, geothermal to power organic rankine cycle unit optimized for efficiency and life-cycle cost.

TAS Energy’s G2P unit is an advanced and innovative approach to the organic rankine cycle, capable of capturing and efficiently generating emission free electricity from extremely low temperatures and quantities of heat. In fact, through TAS Energy’s development of a range of new high efficiency binary expanders on our G2P unit, lower than traditionally thought of as “commercially viable resource temperatures” can now be utilized for geothermal and waste heat applications. Generally not considered viable for utility scale deployment, TAS has proven that electricity generation from unconventional geothermal resources of 205°F, utilizing the first commercial use of a low temperature bottoming cycle at a geothermal flash power plant, are now possible. This innovative design was recognized by the Department of Energy in 2010.

They Operate. We Optimize.

System Optimization = Lowest Life-cycle Cost

At TAS Energy we focus on product optimization, and have spent thousands of engineering hours testing the best combination of all components on the market to design our G2P unit that doesn’t simply operate, but is optimized for ultra-efficient performance; this includes our design of highly efficient controls that continually optimize the unit’s performance in real time. While our competitors design their unit to function without interruption, we’ve invested a significant amount of time to make sure we deliver the most value for the least life-cycle cost, saving our customers money, and our country valuable energy resources.

Turnkey, Tested & Ready to Go

TAS Energy’s optimized G2P designs are made even better through applying our expertise in modular packaging by standardizing our products for easy rapid deployment, and repeatable guaranteed performance. Our designs allow for flexibility according to unique customer requirements, while ensuring we don’t reinvent an already perfect wheel.

In addition to guaranteeing product performance, packaging and standardization of our designs allows us to manufacture, assemble and pretest them at our environmentally controlled 250,000 sq foot headquarters in Houston, Texas. After a thorough testing regimen, our G2P unit is disassembled into easily reassembled ‘blocks’ and transported by truck, train, or ship anywhere in the world for rapid deployment ensuring maximum early revenue or energy savings.

The TAS Energy optimized design and packaged standard approach of modular manufacturing eliminates a number of key risks faced by the traditional approach of buying and shipping thousands of parts to the site, and having it field erected by the lowest bidder. These risks include inclement weather risks and delays, component shipments, unreliable and inexperienced labor, and risk of actual performance. By designing TAS Energy G2P units as modular, turnkey solutions, manufactured in an ISO Certified quality controlled environment, TAS Energy systems are guaranteed to be delivered on time, on budget and ready to begin work – immediately, with guaranteed performance.