Iceland has been famous for decades for using energy from the earth's interior, but its most important export commodity has become engineering knowledge. The company Arctic Green Energy, in cooperation with Chinese giant Sinopec (forming the company Sinopec Green Energy - SGE), realized a project that changed the perception of geothermal in the world. In the new Chinese district of Xiong’an – referred to as the "City of the Future" - the world's largest municipal district heating system powered by geothermal energy was created, becoming a global model for moving away from fossil fuels.
The project in Xiong’an is not a single power plant, but a complex network of over 100 wells and heat exchange stations integrated with city architecture. The key to this venture's success is the rigorous application of the so-called "Icelandic Model". Unlike older installations, which often exploited reservoirs predatorily, almost 100% reinjection is used here. Geothermal water, after releasing heat in exchangers, is forced under pressure back into the aquifer. This guarantees maintaining constant pressure in the reservoir and makes the energy source fully renewable and inexhaustible in the human time scale.
Basic project data:
The scale of this undertaking is impressive. The system in Xiong’an and neighboring counties heats millions of square meters of area, replacing millions of tons of coal annually. Thanks to this, the region, which once struggled with massive smog, has become a "smoke-free city". This technology is particularly relevant for countries like Poland, because it relies on low and medium enthalpy resources (water at 60-80°C), which are widely available in sedimentary basins, not just in volcanic areas.
Besides heat itself, Arctic Green Energy is implementing the "Geothermal Plus" concept in China. This means integrating geothermal with other renewable sources, such as photovoltaics or energy storage, creating hybrid energy systems. Xiong’an has become a testing ground proving that geothermal can constitute a stable base (baseload) for modern, urbanized energy, making great metropolises independent of external gas or coal supplies.