UAE’s Tabreed and Adnoc partner on MENA’s first geothermal energy project: Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) and the UAE’s National Central Cooling Company (Tabreed) have concluded testing on two geothermal wells in Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City, marking the first step in a clean energy project aimed at electrifying the city’s cooling sector, a company statement notes. The project will be funded under Adnoc’s USD 15 bn allocation towards developing low-carbon power solutions.

The details: The project will extract water from underground wells at temperatures exceeding 90°C and flow rates nearing 100 liters per second. The water will then be rerouted to an absorption cooling system to chill it before sending it to Tabreed’s district cooling network at Masdar City. The geothermal energy project is set to meet 10% of Masdar City’s cooling needs, the statement notes.

Why this is important: A majority of the UAE’s electricity consumption is spent on cooling buildings, and district cooling uses nearly 50% less energy than standard air conditioning, the statement notes. Leveraging the energy efficiency of geothermal heat in district cooling operations has the potential to significantly reduce electricity demand for cooling from the grid, the statement added.

SOUND SMART- Geothermal resources are existing reservoirs of hot water or human madeones at varying temperatures and depths below the Earth's surface. Wells can be drilled into the reservoirs to bring steam and very hot water that can be brought up to the surface for use in electricity generation, heating, and cooling. Twenty-seven countries currently rely on geothermal energy, with Iceland generating about a quarter of its electricity needs and some90% of its heating requirements from clean energy.

REMEMBER- Adnoc and Masdar are teaming up on geothermal energy production: Back in March, Adnoc signed a five-year agreement with UAE renewables giant Masdar to explore potential investment and development in the geothermal power sector, with Adnoc serving as Masdar’s drilling technical expert. In February, Masdar acquired shares in the geothermal unit of Indonesia’s state-owned energy firm Pertamina, which plans to generate 600 MW of geothermal power by 2028.

Not the first regional suitors for the power source: In March, KSA’s Industrialization andEnergy Services Company (Taqa) signed a joint venture agreement with Iceland’s Reykjavik Geothermal to establish the Taqa Geothermal Energy Company in Riyadh. The JV will explore sources of geothermal energy in Saudi Arabia in a bid to build up a generation capacity of 1 GW. Countries across the region including KSA, Oman, and Jordan are similarly stepping up efforts to tap into the clean energy source.

And research points to much potential: Two potential geothermal energy sources in Egypt can alone help mitigate 20 mn tons of CO2 emissions, one study (pdf) finds. Another study (pdf) identified 18 regions in Iran with promising geothermal prospects. The level of enthalpy — a measurement for the total heat content of a system — in geothermal reservoirs across the region are highest in Turkey, Iran, and Yemen, according to an academic review (pdf).

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