Distance is no object for IPS when we were called to play our part in the Eden Geothermal Energy Project.

The goal is to decarbonise the heat supply used across the Eden Project, home to one of the world’s largest indoor rainforests, by replacing gas with a renewable heat from a geothermal well.

Drilling has created the UK’s longest deep geothermal well with a vertical depth of nearly 5 km to reach down to the hot water aquifer.

Totus Engineering have created the 3.8km heat main pipework infrastructure to bring the hot water from the well to the district heating main, linking the geothermal site to Eden's new state-of-the-art nursery and Biomes. 

Our small role was to measure the rate of flow for the hot water pumping out before passing through the heat exchanger to fuel the nursery greenhouses.

In addition to getting the Eden Project off gas and demonstrating the greenhouse gas savings obtainable through deep geothermal heating, research has been undertaken by the University of Exeter to build knowledge of the deep geothermal resources in Cornwall, to unlock future geothermal development.

The heat main consists of two 150mm (6”) steel pipes – a flow and a return – each encapsulated in a thick layer of insulation to a total diameter of 280mm, linking the borehole with the heat loads at Growing Point and the Eden Energy Centre. There, plate heat exchangers extract the heat for use in Eden’s heating circuits. Meanwhile, the newly-cooled water in the heat main travels back to the geothermal site to be reheated.

All but a very short stretch of the heat main was installed below ground, although a short stretch behind Eden Project’s main office building is visible, where we were able to attach our flow measurement equipment. 

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