1. EVALUATING FIFE COAL MINES AS POTENTIAL
GEOTHERMAL RESOURCES USING
GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM (GIS)
Vahrot Prapawiwat
1) INTRODUCTION
Closed and/or abandoned mines are flooded with water and this water
could be used to supply low enthalpy geothermal energy for cooling and
heating purposes. The principal of using mine water for geothermal
energy is based on geothermal gradient which increases as one goes
deeper resulting in increased rock temperatures. The heat of the rocks
warms the water within the flooded mines and then ‘could be used as
input to heat pumps for heating and cooling buildings’ (Bojadgieva
et.al., 2012) or used as thermal energy supply. The recovery of
geothermal energy from abandoned Fife coal mines can significantly
contribute to making the UK’s aim of having 15% of its energy from
renewable resources by 2020 (DECC, 2011) possible.
3) METHODS
a. Heat estimation
aI. Ww = Qw x dw x sw x ΔTw
Wa = Qa x da x sa x ΔTa
We = (100 – r) x E
Wt = Ww + Wa - We
Ww: heat energy required to heat water, Wa: heat energy required to heat air, We: heat
from electrical equipment, Wt: total geothermal power (MW) Qw/a: water and air flow
(kg/m3), dw/a:specific density of water and air, sw/a: specific heat of water and air,
ΔTw/a : temperature changes of water and air (˚C), r: electrical performance (%), E:
total electrical power (MW) (Díez and Díaz-Aguado, 2014).
aII. G = Z x ΔT x SVCwat
G: heat output (W), Z: flowrate (L/s), ΔT: temperature changes (˚C), SVCwat: specific
heat capacity of water (Banks cited in Gillespie et.al., 2013).
b. Spatial Analyses
ESRI ® ArcMAP TM 10.2 was used to create SIMD map of Fife, map of
potential geothermal resources and heat demand maps of 14 villages/towns in
Fife. Heat demand of studied areas were calculated using this software as well.
4) RESULTS
Total geothermal power that could be exploited from Fife collieries is
128 MWt.
Location Total Heat
Demand
(MWh)
Potential Thermal Power
from Collieries (MWt)
%
East Wemyss 457,000 34 64
Cowdenbeath 278,000 8 25
Kirkcaldy 265,000 17 55
Bowhill 103,000 11 91
Methil 94,000 1 9
Leven 85,000 1 10
Lochgelly South 67,000 11 140
Kelty 63,000 6 81
Ballingry 59,000 16 232
Crossford 57,000 3 45
Buckhaven 53,000 2 32
Blairhall 52,000 14 230
Kinglassie 20,000 1 43
Wellwood 18,000 1 47
Table 1: Summary table of total heat demand for each location sorted by total heat demand.
Column %, indicate extents of how much geothermal energy from collieries could be beneficial
to certain locations, express in percentages.
Figure 2: Map of studied areas in Southern Fife. Studied towns and cities are highlighted and labelled
which they overlay SIMD map. Twenty nine studied collieries are expressed in proportional symbols
representing their potential heat power.
Figure 1: SIMD map of Fife. Dark green represent the most deprived areas and dark
red indicates the least deprived areas in Fife. Blue dots represent 29 locations of
colliery studied in this research.
5) DISCUSSION & CONCLUSIONS
ACEOM report (2013) has proposed that 1,708 GWh of
Scotland’s thermal energy could be supplied by mine water per
year, this research suggests that 199 GWh or around 22% of the
proposal thermal energy could be supplied by the collieries
investigated in this research.
Table 1 suggests that most villages and towns investigated in
this research are most likely to be benefit from mine water
geothermal power where some locations’ heat energy demands
could potentially be fully supplied by mine geothermal power.
Finally, Fife coal mines do have the potential to supply
geothermal power that can be beneficial to deprived towns and
villages.
REFERENCES
BOJADGIEVA, K., BENDEREV, A., GERGINOV, P. & HRISTOV, V. 2013. Comptes rendus de l’Académie bulgare des Sciences, 66, 565–571.
DECC. 2011. Department of Energy & Climate Change London, 5, 1–9, doi: 10.1021/es00108a605. URN 11D/698
DÍEZ, R. & DÍAZ-AGUADO, M. 2014. Energies, 7, 4241–4260, doi: 10.3390/en7074241.
GILLESPIE M.R., CRANE E.J., B.H.F. 2013. 2. AECOM report. British Geological Survey, 2, 125.
2) AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
i. To calculate geothermal power potential of abandoned coal mines
in Fife
ii. To examine the degree of beneficial of the calculated geothermal
power to certain deprived areas in Fife
Supervised by Dr Ruth Robinson