Green Rock, Torrens win $7m grants

Two West Perth-based companies have each been awarded a $7 million grant from the federal government's geothermal drilling program.

Green Rock Energy and Torrens Energy were awarded the grants from round two of the program, which had a budget of $35 million.

Torrens Energy will apply the funds to achieve a proof-of-concept at the company's Parachilna geothermal project in South Australia.

Executive director John Canaris said exploration work completed to date had established that heat flows were very high at the project.

"The resulting modelled temperatures are excellent (+200ºC at approximately 4000m), and represent the highest modelled temperatures for any EGS project located on the electricity grid in Australia," he said.

"In addition the Inferred Geothermal Resource identified at Parachilna (780,000PJ) remains the largest reported in Australia, demonstrating the potential for a substantial 'on-grid' geothermal field to be established north of Port Augusta in South Australia."

Green Rock will apply its funds to the Perth Urban geothermal energy project, which is a joint venture with the University of Western Australia.

The project will demonstrate the commercial use of medium temperature geothermal resources, in particular the replacement of electricity-powered compression chillers - which produce cold water for air-conditioning - with geothermal-powered absorption chillers.

"This government grant will assist Green Rock Energy in realising the enormous potential of the geothermal energy below the Perth Metropolitan area to reduce carbon emissions and simultaneously reduce peak power loads through district heating and cooling," managing director Adrian Larking said.