Klamath Falls geothermal district heating system evaluation
The city of Klamath Falls, Oregon, is located near a geothermal resource that has provided heating for homes, businesses, schools, and institutions for many years. Almost 20 years ago, in 1977, Klamath Falls and Klamath County became interested in establishing a geothermal district heating system to extend the benefits of the geothermal resource to government buildings and businesses in downtown Klamath Falls. The district heating system was constructed in 1981 to initially serve 14 government buildings with planned expansion to serve additional building along the route. The expectation at the time was that the system would have a high initial load and rapid expansion to full capacity. When the system feasibility was studied, the cost of natural gas was increasing rapidly; that trend was expected to continue, making geothermal energy highly attractive by comparison (Lienau, et al., 1977). The promise of profitable operation has been elusive, even after fifteen years. More than once, financial and operational problems have resulted in serious consideration of shutting the system down. Challenges faced by the system have included: (1) initial opposition from other geothermal users to operating the system, resulting in a three year delay in system start-up to 1984, (2) failure of a portion of the distribution system piping after one season of operation, resulting in five years of downtime, reconstruction cost, and poor public perception of the system, (3) low-load factor, with the system operating at only about 15-20 percent of design capacity, and (4) low-natural gas cost, resulting in pressure to keep district heating energy costs low and leaving little incentive for new customers to connect. While the district heating system has had more than its share of problems, there has been a strong underlying support for geothermal energy and the will to work through the problems.
- OSTI ID:
- 508611
- Journal Information:
- Geo-Heat Center Quarterly Bulletin, Vol. 17, Issue 3; Other Information: PBD: Aug 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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