At the end of April, the first parts of the giant Bentec 450 AC drilling rig arrived in the village of Bodelva in the British county of Cornwall, which was gradually moved here from Lusatia near Hodonín by up to 94 trucks. The device with a load capacity of 450 tons, which is 55 meters high after assembly, belongs to the company MND from the KKCG group of the Czech billionaire Karel Komárek. Just this week, the first British geothermal source of heat and electricity begins to dig at Bodelva.
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The system will be used to supply the Project Eden Botanic Gardens, which was established 20 years ago in the pit of the local mined kaolin mine and is one of Cornwall’s renowned tourist attractions. It simulates different ecosystems operating in different climatic conditions. The garden is dominated by giant domed greenhouses hiding the rainforest and the Mediterranean environment.
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A new geothermal source excavated by the Czech company MND Drilling & Services and financed by the European Union, local government and private investors, is intended to ensure carbon neutrality for the sought-after garden by 2025.
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Two wells
It is to be built in two phases. In the first stage, Komárek’s Bentec will dig a 4.5-kilometer-deep and only 25 cm wide borehole, into which a double pipe ending in an underground water reservoir will be laid. The first pipe will blow cold water into the new well, which will be heated in depth by the hot granite rocks into which the system is being drilled. The second pipe returns water to the earth’s surface with a temperature of around 190 degrees. It will be used for heating Project Eden offices, greenhouses and kitchens. The used water will then return to the underground for reheating.
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How Eden will work if the project is completed.
Drilling work in the first stage should last five or six months. If the expected drilling of the fracture system is confirmed, the second stage will take place later, during which another practically identical “well” for water heating will be drilled. After the connection of both boreholes via a fracture system in the rock, a geothermal power plant is to be built on the surface. When completed in 2023, the production of heat and electricity should be sufficient to supply both the botanical garden and its facilities, as well as the consumption of the local population.
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The fifth MND project
For MND Drilling & Services, Project Eden is not the first order of its kind. The company has previously participated in four similar constructions in Germany, France and Belgium. “The company has long been mapping geothermal projects that are being prepared in Europe,” says Dana Dvořáková, a spokeswoman for the Komárek KKCG group. The Bentec drilling rig, suitable for geothermal drilling, was purchased by MND in 2013. And it will probably not be idle even after the work on Project Eden is completed.
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“This type of project is definitely interesting for our company. For the period 2021 to 2022, we are already participating in several tenders and negotiations are underway with customers who prepare geothermal wells in various European countries, “says Dvořáková.
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Geothermal technology is interesting for MND mainly because, unlike traditional mining activities, the profitability of these contracts does not depend on oil and gas prices. These have fluctuated in recent years, and the KKCG is responding by focusing on a more stable source of revenue, which is subsidized and politically supported “green energy” projects.
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Until the financial crisis in 2008, oil and gas extraction was the main engine of profits for the KKCG Komárek Group. Later, the Sazka lottery group took over this role for his holding. Although the MND subsidiary still belongs to the main pillars of KKCG and still produces oil and natural gas in South Moravia or Ukraine, today other fields are also important for it, such as gas storage, drilling orders or energy trade.
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To enter the UK, MND has teamed up with local drilling contractor Boldon Drilling. He does not own a suitable drilling rig, but provides support to Czech partners, secures permission for the deployment of Bentec and supplies some of the necessary materials and services.
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The Czech-British tandem won the tender for the Cornish contract last year. The work is now starting against the original plans with a delay of several months, caused by both Brexit and the covidu-19 pandemic.
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The Czechia has no conditions
The geothermal heating plant with a power plant in Cornwall is to cost about half a billion crowns. Geothermal energy has great potential in the UK, and is estimated to be able to provide up to a fifth of the country’s current electricity consumption.
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Similarly, geothermal energy is considered a promising direction in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in other countries. In Germany alone, according to British television ITV, the industry has created over 22,000 jobs and brought the local economy 13.3 billion euros since the beginning of the millennium.
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In the Czech Republic, only small projects from geothermal energy come into play. These are mainly heat pumps for heating individual houses. It will suffice with boreholes deep in the order of hundreds of meters.
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Large projects will probably not start in our country in the future either. “The right geological conditions are essential and necessary for this technology, which unfortunately are not found in our country. At present, we do not have information about any planned project of deep geothermal wells, “concludes Dana Dvořáková.
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