Working with Weyburn’s Panther Drilling, DEEP Earth Energy is continuing work on their geothermal project here in southeast Saskatchewan. Based near Torquay, they are working on a smaller scale project to be able to show the feasibility of a geothermal power generation station in Saskatchewan. To help accomplish that, the company recently drilled the deepest well in Saskatchewan.

“We use our world-class oil and gas drilling technology to drill these deep wells down into the earth in order to move huge volumes of brine, which is the medium for carrying the heat,” explained Kirsten Marcia, the CEO of DEEP Earth Energy. The heat is then put through the facilities above ground where it passes through a heat exchanger. The water goes back into the ground via an injection well. 

The heat exchanger then transfers the heat to a refrigerant that flash heats and creates steam. This powers a turbine through a process known as organic Rankine cycle technology. While the technology has been used in Saskatchewan in the past, this is the first time it has been applied to a geothermal process.

“We just completed our second well in our winter program, and we’ll be starting up our third well shortly here,” Marcia added. She pointed out that they are working to get as much of the drilling done ahead of the spring break-up as possible, so they can get detailed data that will help them with their banking feasibility study. This is needed to help secure the funding for the construction of a full-scale facility.

The hope is to have five of these stratigraphic wells completed by that time.

In a previous interview with Discover Weyburn, Marcia pointed out how the work in geothermal isn’t just a benefit for geothermal power generation. She stated the water does have some use after it passes through the heat exchanger, but before it is injected back into the ground.

“Before we inject that water back into the ground for reheating, we want to look at opportunities where that water, which is not cold, it’s still 65° Celsius, where we can redeploy that heat to another end-user such as a greenhouse developer,” Marcia had previously said, talking about just one of the possible uses for the water. “This is world-class agricultural expertise, world-class energy expertise all married together in a slightly different way.”