Swedish Climeon to collaborate with NZ-based geothermal minerals firm Geo40

In an announcement today, Swedish heat power technology company Climeon announces new strategic partnership.

Climeon will collaborate with New Zealand-based geothermal minerals firm Geo40 to capture valuable minerals and increase the geothermal electricity production. The partnership strengthens both companies’ geothermal offerings, produces sustainably sourced minerals and opens up a new area within geothermal power production for Climeon. The plan is to recover wast heat at an existing geothermal power plant, in a bottoming cycle system. The plant will be the first combined mineral extraction and power production plant, when starting operation as planned in 2020.

Geo40 has developed a technology to extract silica and other minerals from geothermal brine, the hot wastewater that remains after high temperature geothermal power production. We have reported on the company before. The silica in the brine causes scaling in geothermal pipes and wells and limits the heat that can be extracted and utilized for power generation. By extracting and removing the silica and other valuable minerals like lithium, Geo40’s technology reduces operating costs for geothermal power stations, while producing sustainably sourced minerals. The filtered water from Geo40’s application can then be utilized in Climeon’s Heat Power modules to produce clean electricity and increase power output at geothermal power stations. Bringing together the two firms’ technologies opens up a wide range of global opportunities, particularly in recovering waste heat from existing geothermal power plants, so called bottoming cycles.

“We’re happy to announce this strategic collaboration with Geo40. By combining our Heat Power modules with Geo40’s technology for extraction of silica and valuable minerals we can strengthen our geothermal offering and open up a new part of the geothermal market”, says Thomas Öström, CEO of Climeon. 

“We believe that our patented technology for silica removal combined with Climeon’s technology for waste heat recovery is an exciting development for the geothermal industry and will be exploring the possibilities of a first common project”, says John Worth, CEO of Geo40.

More than half of the world’s geothermal power plants have waste heat in Climeon’s temperature range that is currently not utilized for power production. By partnering with Geo40 to remove the silica from the brine, the waste heat can be utilized for power production, which opens up a new part of the geothermal market for Climeon.

“Combining our technologies will enable us to better address the geothermal bottoming cycle market as we together increase the output from existing geothermal power plants while solving many of the issues that geothermal brine brings”, concludes Thomas Öström.