• Geothermal developers CeraPhi Energy™ and specialist well engineering and project managementcompany Fraser Well Management (FWM) are to work together to deliver large-scale deep geothermal energy solutions as a missing piece of NetZero renewables jigsaw.
• The businesses target “significant potential” for drawing heat from the “one giant battery” of the earth to deliver 24/7 reliable scalable cost-effective green energy.
• Plans include reusing redundant oil and gas wells for heat transfer using CeraPhi’s patented technology and FWM’s wells expertise.
• Wells would be managed to the end of their productive life repurposing those suitable for geothermal and decommissioning wells and infrastructure where repurposing is not practical or possible.
• The collaboration seeks to take geothermal to “new levels”, harnessing billions of years of renewable energy beneath our feet by decarbonising heat and energy supply in the UK, Europe and the US.
• Ceraphi Energy and Fraser Well Management’s strategy is to unlock geothermal through the development of close loop geothermal, both through the re-purposing of existing wells and the development of deep geothermal.

Decades of energy experience are uniting to unlock heat from deep underground to deliver large-scale commercial geothermal energy solutions.

Geothermal delivery company CeraPhi Energy has teamed with specialist well engineering and project management company Fraser Well Management to deliver the ‘missing piece’ in the renewable energy jigsaw – using the earth’s heat to produce “24/7 cost-effective green geothermal energy” that can be scaled up by a modular approach.

CeraPhi’s international subsurface expertise and FWM’s renowned experience in well engineering and project management will develop “game changing” geothermal energy solutions for sustainable heating and power generation in the UK, the US and Europe.

Conventional Geothermal energy is not new and takes heat from the beneath the ground. Geothermal energy traditionally needs water or steam “aquifers” under the earth’s surface, where, depending on its characteristics, it can be used for heating, cooling or harnessed for clean electricity.

Karl Farrow, CeraPhi® CEO, said CeraPhi’s delivery and execution process is different to the conventional geothermal approach and is targeted at modular and scalable projects for power, heating and cooling.

“Our technology and approaches are about multiple scalable projects and commerciality. CeraPhi is the first fully integrated geothermal delivery company in the UK.”

“Geothermal is the only true baseload energy available anywhere and everywhere globally. Ninetynine percent of the earth’s volume has temperatures more than 1,000-degrees making the earth one giant battery with enough clean renewable energy to last billions of years.”

“Surprisingly and given that such a staggering vast amount of energy is trapped beneath our feet, only 15GW of energy is currently commercially produced from geothermal sources in the world today, equal to the daily demand of Wales.”

CeraPhi’s technology approach focuses on the use of heat primarily providing combined heat and power in agriculture, industrial commercial and residential applications, in conjunction with desalination and hydrogen production.

Working with FWM and their expertise in decommissioning of oil and gas assets, we have the ability to tap into existing well stock reducing the overall cost of delivery for geothermal. The repurposing in turn provides a huge cost saving to the oil and gas companies while also providing valuable support to the energy transition for oil and gas majors, supply chain and jobs.

Mr Farrow said Great Yarmouth-based CeraPhi’s proprietary closed loop geothermal technology and extensive international geothermal experience and FWM’s expertise would fill the gap between wind, solar and other renewable energy production to accelerate the renewable energy transition across the UK and beyond.

“There are potential projects here and in Europe. With the UK on the journey to net zero, geothermal is key. The public is looking for alternative green energy, and geothermal provides that solution.”

“A perception is that geothermal has to be somewhere near a volcano, like Iceland or New Zealand. That is not so. With CeraPhi’s well technology allowing the use of lower geothermal temperatures to provide power in a similar way to ground source heat pumps and on a far larger scale, this opens all parts of the world to the benefits of geothermal energy.”

Nick Ford, managing director of Fraser Well Management, said the company, with bases in Great Yarmouth, Rotterdam and Aberdeen, had been looking at geothermal projects for a number of years.

“We see the demand for sustainable and reliable green energy in the UK and more actively in Europe. The repurposing of wells and deep geothermal is key to delivering this goal. At Fraser Well Management, well construction and project management are key areas of the services we provide.”

“We see our collaboration with CeraPhi as a great opportunity to contribute our skills and experience to the energy transition, in a growing market.”

“We’re excited to be working with CeraPhi. The relationship between the founders of CeraPhi and Fraser Well Management goes back several years, and we see this as a natural development of that ongoing relationship.”

Mr Farrow added that the CeraPhi approach differs from conventional geothermal ideas by its proprietary technology, CeraPhiWell™ which uses a single well in a close loop environment, reducing risk and lowering costs whilst increasing efficiency in the development of deep geothermal systems.

“Geothermal solutions can be off-grid and on grid, deployable almost anywhere and never dependent on the weather or the season.”

Deep geothermal requires drilling to several thousands of metres into the subsurface to access temperatures more than 200°c. This is possible in many areas across the UK, he said.

“But CeraPhi Energy’s focus is on heat transfer and the geothermal ‘cascade’. The proprietary CeraPhiWell™ draws heat from the ground at lower temperatures to create efficient off-grid energy solutions like heating and cooling for cities and districts, replacing high environmental impact electricity production.”

“The cascade can also source hydrogen production, power distribution, desalination, battery charging, electric vehicle charging networks, food drying and green house agriculture.”

In addition to the UK and the rest of Europe, Ceraphi and Fraser Well Management are excited to apply their break-through renewable energy collaboration in other markets, including the United States and Canada, where the combination of experience and technology will create new energy from repurposing old wells, saving millions, and creating nearly infinite energy.

KeyFacts Renewable Energy Directory: CeraPhi   l   KeyFacts Energy Industry Directory: Fraser Well Management