Geothermics 53 (2015) 291–307

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Geothermics
journal homepage:www.elsevier.com/locate/geothermics

Geothermal power plants: Evolution and performance assessments

∗
Ronald DiPippo
Chancellor Professor Emeritus, Mechanical Engineering Dept., University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Renewable Energy Consultant, 16 Bay View Avenue, South
Dartmouth, MA 02748, United States

article info abstract

Article history: This paper traces the technical development of geothermal plants from the very beginning, focusing on the efficiency of the
Received 1 May 2014 geothermal-to-electrical energy conversion. The plants at Larderello (Italy) and Wairakei (New Zealand) are examined in
Accepted 12 July 2014 some detail. Included are discussions and analyses of little-known plants in Africa and on the Italian island of Ischia that
pioneered the development of geothermal energy conversion systems beyond the dry steam plants in Tuscany. Presented are
Keywords: important milestones in geothermal power plant development that opened the way to worldwide expansion of the use of
Geothermal power
geothermal resources for electricity generation. It is shown that while there has been a slight trend toward higher efficiency
Utilization efficiency
over the years, the improvement is less than has occurred in conventional fossil-fueled power plants. The efficiency gains
Larderello
Wairakei result mainly from more elaborate conversion systems whose extra capital costs may not be justified in all cases. Nevertheless,
Kiabukwa the data show that geothermal power plants can be designed and built to achieve high efficiencies, comparable to or even
Ischia greater than conventional plants when appropriate economic conditions and incentives exist.

© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Origin and growth of geothermal power generation
Geothermal energy has been used as long as humans have populated the
earth (Cataldi et al., 1999). Since the hot water flow-ing from thermal springs
was easy to exploit for heating houses, bathing, curing ailments, etc., anyone
living near them could take advantage of it. It was only at the turn of the
twentieth century that someone figured out how to convert geothermal energy
into elec-tricity. This important step meant that even those living far from the
source of geothermal energy could benefit from it via the electricity that
reached them on transmission lines.
The study of the evolution of geothermal power plants – their technical
characteristics and efficiency – is complicated by the fact that for more than
half a century after the first plant was built all of them were designed to
accommodate chemical production along with power generation. From 1904
until 1959 the geother-mal electric generating plants in Italy and New Zealand
had to allow for the recovery of valuable minerals and the production of
heavy water, respectively. Beginning in 1960 with the first plant at The
Geysers (California, USA), generally all geothermal plants have been stand-
alone electricity generators. Their design has been opti-mized to produce the
most cost-effective power for the prevailing
geoscientific, technical and economic conditions. Some plants, notably in
Iceland and Japan, also supply hot water for district heat-ing on the
cogeneration model, but this use can be accommodated without significantly
compromising the efficiency of the electrical side of the installation and it
improves the overall utilization of the geothermal resource.
A number of histories of geothermal power development have been
published, including ENEL (1970), McLarty and Reed (1992), Burgassi
(1999), Lund (2004), Hodgson (2010), and Parri (2013a). None of these
discourses focus on the thermodynamic efficiency of the plants as technology
progressed from simple units to com-plex modern systems. Because the very
early uses of geothermal energy exploited handy supplies for direct heat
applications, lit-tle thought was given to efficiency of usage. But when
geothermal electric generating stations came into existence in the early twen-
tieth century and when the geothermal fluids had to be captured by drilling
wells, a risky and expensive proposition, people began to think about using
the now hard-won geothermal energy in the most efficient manner possible. It
is surprising, however, that it took so long for a scientifically sound method to
emerge to carry out this assessment.

2. Performance metrics

∗ The following sections present three performance measures that may be

Tel.: +1 508 996 6576.
E-mail address: rondipippo@comcast.net used, under the correct circumstances, to assess the

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geothermics.2014.07.005 0375-
6505/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
292 R. DiPippo / Geothermics 53 (2015) 291–307

Nomenclature
gs geosteam
Latin letters IN input
1F single flash N net
2F double flash TH thermal
3F triple flash U utilization
B boiler(s)
B binary (Fig. 24)
BP barometric pit efficiency of geothermal power plants. These will be applied later in this
C condenser paper.
CD condensate drain
CP condensate pump; chemical plant 2.1. Specific steam consumption
CS clean steam
CSV control/stop valve The earliest reported measure of performance for a geothermal power
CT cooling tower plant is a very practical one, namely, the specific steam con-sumption, SSC.
CW cooling water This was a logical metric because the first geothermal power plants operated
CWP cooling water pump on dry steam resources. The SSC is defined as the mass of geothermal steam
D deaerator; drain needed to generate 1 kWh of electric-ity, or equivalently, the mass flow rate of
DR steam drier geothermal steam needed to generate one kilowatt of net electric power:
DS dry steam
e specific exergy
˙ rate of exergy flow SSC = m˙ gs (1)
E ˙

EV evaporator WN
FE flash evaporator
˙
F flash chamber (Fig. 7) The subscript gs refers to the natural geothermal steam (geosteam); W N is
FBflash-binary the net electricity available for distribution after all plant parasitic power
FWP feedwater pump requirements have been taken from the generator output.
G generator While the SSC may be useful to gauge the performance of plants at a
GC gas compressor particular field, it is not useful for comparing them to plants at other fields
GS geothermal steam where the geofluid conditions are almost certain to be different. Clearly, the
h specific enthalpy geofluid reservoir temperature and pressure, the amount of noncondensable
H1, H2 heat exchangers gases (NCG), the salinity, and the ambient conditions all may differ. These
HP, MP, LP high, medium, low pressure factors have a profound effect on the inherent potential of the geofluid to
HS hot spring produce useful output. The measure of that potential is provided by the exergy
IC intercondenser of the geofluid.
m˙ mass flow rate
NCG noncondensable gas(es)
NS natural steam 2.2. Thermal efficiency
PH preheater
P pump(s) To obtain a more useful comparative performance measure, one turns to
P pressure thermodynamics. For any power plant that operates on a closed cycle, the
PS pure steam thermal efficiency TH can be calculated from the standard formula as the net
PW production well(s) power output divided by the heat input:
P&B Prache & Bouillon
˙ ˙
rate of heat transfer = WN
(2)
Q TH ˙

s specific entropy Q
IN
SHsuperheater
This formula applies to geothermal binary plants, but not geother-mal steam
SJE steam-jet ejectors or flash plants.
S separator
SGC specific geofluid consumption 2.3. Utilization efficiency
SSC specific steam consumption
T turbine A universal metric for the performance of power plants in gen-eral and
T temperature
geothermal ones in particular is the utilization efficiency U, namely, the net
V vent(s) power output divided by the rate of exergy
˙ supplied by the natural geofluid (Kestin, 1980):
W power
x quality or dryness fraction ˙
= W
U
N
˙ . (3)
Greek letters E
IN
efficiency The exergy rate is found from the well-known formula:
˙ − T0 (sg − s0 )], (4)
Subscripts
EIN = m˙g eg = m˙g [hg − h0
0 dead state where the subscript g refers to the natural geofluid and the subscript 0 to the
g geofluid ambient conditions or the “dead state.” The thermodynamic properties
Ggross enthalpy h and entropy s are found nowadays from electronic databases, such
as Refprop (NIST, 2013),
 R. DiPippo / Geothermics 53 (2015) 291–307
and T0 is the absolute temperature (in kelvin) of the dead state. Eq.
(3) applies to all manner of power plants, be they fossil, nuclear, solar, wind,
etc., thereby allowing a direct comparison of geother-mal plants to any other
type.
3. Larderello – geothermal pioneer
3.1. Historical background
In July 1904, seeking to diversify and improve his thriving boric acid
business at Larderello in the Tuscany region of Italy, Prince Piero Ginori
Conti invented a means of driving a small piston engine using steam he was
harvesting from a huge geothermal resource (Breckenridge, 1925). The hot
geothermal fluid, sometimes vapor, sometimes a mixture of vapor and liquid,
◦ many prac-tical problems that had to be solved, it seems no one paid very
at an average temperature of about 150 C was extracted from wells at depths
up to 300 m (Burgassi, 1999). Such wells today would be considered
extremely shallow, but at the time were of significant depth. Ginori Conti’s
geothermal steam engine drove an electric dynamo and generated electricity –
the first time that geothermal energy had ever been put to such use.
There had been a concern that natural steam should not be used directly in
an engine because it contained acidic gases and dissolved solids that would
quickly corrode or contaminate the engine. This concern had influenced a
former Larderello engineer, Ferdinando Raynaut, when he built a small power
unit about nine years earlier (Hahn, 1923). Little is known about Raynaut’s
machine, but it is certain that it did not generate electricity. Probably it was a
small reciprocating steam engine of a kind that was in wide use at the time.
Raynaut possibly adapted a fire-tube boiler, a design which was common on
steam locomotives, by replacing the burning of wood or coal that produced
the hot gases flowing through the tubes with natural steam obtained from a
geothermal well. These wells were called “soffioni” in Italian, in analogy with
the natural, freely blowing, noisy steam vents or fumaroles that were known
to people by this name. Thus the natural steam flowing through the tubes
inside the boiler produced clean steam for his engine.
Raynaut’s machine produced mechanical shaft power to operate pumps,
mills, agitators and other equipment needed in the boric acid factory. Most
likely, he did not incorporate a condenser in his unit, meaning it operated as
an open system, not on a cycle, where the exhaust steam was discharged to
the atmosphere, as in a locomotive steam engine. Raynaut’s boiler may have
received fresh water from the nearby Possera stream (Villa, 1975).
Unfortunately, his pioneering experiment failed when the cor-rosive
natural steam attacked the boiler tubes, allowing the geosteam to mix with the
pure water and causing problems in the engine. Raynaut’s bad experience,
however, did not deter Ginori Conti, but it would constrain the design of later,
larger plants that used steam turbines. This eventually led to the so-called
“Indirect Cycle” of operations.
Ginori Conti, whose wife was the granddaughter of Francesco Larderel,
the founder of the boric acid factory, went one step fur-ther than Larderel.
Aware of the potential corrosion problems, he was careful to remove any
entrained mineral-laden liquid from the steam before letting it into his engine.
He did this by sending the steam through a cylindrical tank that trapped the
liquid (Ginori Conti, 1924a; Funaioli, 1918; Mazzoni, 1951). Today’s
geothermal plants use a similar system called a final moisture remover.
Ginori Conti’s experiment of using geosteam directly in a recip-rocating
piston engine was surprisingly successful, leading him to build a somewhat
larger engine to provide electricity to his boric acid factory. That machine also
ran on natural steam and oper-ated smoothly with no corrosion problems for
about a dozen years (Funaioli, 1918). By 1908 he had two 20 kW units
running and was
293
able to supply all the electricity needed for his entire factory and associated
buildings. Thus July 4, 1904 marked the beginning of the era of geothermal
electricity (ENEL, 2014).
It may be noted in passing that Ginori Conti’s experimental machine has
been erroneously described in the literature by some writers (including the
present author) as having been the first binary plant. A careful reading of the
oldest writings, reviewed for this paper, reveals that Ginori Conti used the
natural steam directly in his engine.
Ginori Conti’s invention was but a tiny step. His original dynamo
produced only 10 kW, but he had proved the concept and very soon the idea
took flight. By 1913, a 250 kW generator was put into service in Larderello 1,
the first central power station driven by geothermal energy. Several towns
around Larderello, by then a town in its own right, received electricity via
shiny new aluminum wires. Because of the abundance of the resource and the
much attention, at first, to the efficiency of converting geothermal energy
from natural steam into electricity. The fact that it was actually possible was
good enough – for the time being.
3.2. Larderello 1 power station: prototype commercial indirect cycle
Construction on Larderello 1 began in 1912 and was fin-ished in
September 1913. Besides generating electrical power, the plant incorporated a
boric acid recovery system that captured the valuable mineral from the
condensed natural steam in concrete evaporating vessels (ENEL, 1993); see
Fig. 1. In assessing the per-formance of the early Larderello electrical
generating stations, it is important to note that the main purpose of the
Larderello facilities at that time was the production of boric acid, an industrial
process that had been on-going for decades. In fact, the market for boric acid
was controlled by Ginori Conti’s company (Parri, 2013a). Thus, the power
plants had to be designed primarily for the most efficient recovery of the boric
minerals, and secondarily for the generation of electricity.
The first attempt to make a prototype commercial electrical power plant at
Larderello involved the indirect use of the natu-ral geosteam, similar to what
Raynaut had attempted, for heating and boiling fresh water to generate steam
for a 180 kW turbine that drove a 250 kW-rated generator. A simplified flow
diagram for the plant is shown in Fig. 2.
The plant used a novel, 4-shell evaporator, inclined at a shallow angle,
containing tubes with up-flowing liquid water immersed within shells filled
with down-flowing natural steam; see Fig. 3 (Anon., 1915). By this means the
water boiled into pure steam that was collected in a steam drum and then sent
to the turbine. The mineral-laden geosteam condensate drained out and was
collected and sent to the chemical plant for boric acid recovery. The small
plant employed a surface condenser with cooling water obtained from wooden
natural-draft cooling towers. This allowed for a cycle using clean water with
the geosteam being utilized only for its ther-mal energy while allowing for the
recovery of the minerals. The make-up water for the cooling tower may have
been pumped from the nearby Possera stream.
Fig. 3 shows the assembly of four interconnected evaporators in the
Larderello 1 powerhouse. Since the inventor of the device, Charles Louis
Prache, held a patent on it (U.S. Patent, 1913), the boiler was known as a
Prache & Bouillon boiler. The turbo-generator unit is seen in Fig. 4 with the
evaporator visible in the back room.
Since rotodynamic steam turbines had replaced reciprocating piston
engines by then, this design avoided having corrosive steam impinging on
high-speed rotating turbine blades and allowed for a reasonable vacuum at the
steam turbine exhaust. Because the NCG content in Larderello’s geosteam
was high (4–6% by weight) and the
294 R. DiPippo / Geothermics 53 (2015) 291–307
Fig. 1. Larderello 1: (L) Powerhouse with wooden water cooling towers and steam pipelines; (R) Boric acid evaporation ponds with power station in background.
Source: Funaioli (1918).
Fig. 2. Simplified schematic flow diagram for 250 kW prototype unit at Larderello 1 (see
nomenclature).
geosteam pressure was low (a few atmospheres), it would have been
practically impossible to maintain a proper vacuum for the turbine discharge
if natural steam were to be used in the expander.
3.3. Larderello 1 power station: commercial indirect cycle
In 1916 and 1917, much larger power units were added to Larderello 1: 2
× 2500 kW in 1916 and 1 × 2500 kW in 1917. The 250 kW unit was removed
in September 1916 and moved to Lago, another production site in the
southern part of the Boraciferous Region, where there was a research and
training facility.
Larderello’s natural, corrosive steam was used to provide heat to raise
“pure” steam for the turbines, similar to the scheme used in the 250 kW
prototype. However, after having experienced problems with the Prache &
Bouillon inclined evaporators, the new commer-cial units had vertical
evaporators of the Kestner design (DiPippo,
Fig. 3. Prache et Bouillon evaporator (reboiler) assembly for 250 kW prototype in
Larderello 1 power station, from best available copy (see nomenclature).
Source: Modified from Anon. (1915).
Fig. 4. Larderello 1250 kW power unit. Note Prache & Bouillon evaporator in rear room.
Source: ENEL (2014).
2012); see Figs. 5 and 6. Four sets, each comprised of two evapora-tors, one
separator and one superheater, were arranged in parallel to supply each of the
three power units (Funaioli, 1918). Today the arrangement shown in Fig. 5
would be called a reboiler sys-tem. The preheater is supplied with the natural
◦
steam condensate from the evaporator, which was still reasonably hot, ∼90
C. Notice that the feedwater to the preheater and evaporator could consist of
the condensate from both the pure steam from the turbine and from the
geosteam, minus the NCG. The fraction of feedwater from each source could
be varied and controlled by means of three valves shown in Fig. 5.
Initially surface condensers were used (see C in Fig. 5), allow-ing some of
the pure steam condensate to be recycled, while some
Fig. 5. Larderello Indirect Cycle with surface condenser (simplified) (see nomencla-
ture).
Source: Based on Funaioli (1918) and Parri (2013a,b).
 R. DiPippo / Geothermics 53 (2015) 291–307
Fig. 6. Upper section of Kestner steam generators: one set had a separator in center and two
evaporators (one on each side), five sets served a unit; from best available copy.
Source: Funaioli (1918).
of the condensate provided make-up for the cooling tower. The cooling water
was supplied by three 25-m tall wooden natural draft cooling towers in which
the lower 6.5 m contained the actual evaporative cooling section. After six
years, the surface condensers were abandoned in favor of less-expensive,
direct-contact, mixing condensers (see C in Fig. 9). As long as it was
economically attrac-tive to extract dissolved minerals, this arrangement
allowed the geosteam condensate and the NCG to be sent to a chemical plant
for processing and recovery.
Over the years, this power station was upgraded and new units were
installed as technology advanced. In 1923 the trouble-some Kestner boilers
(tube corrosion) were replaced with boilers, invented by Larderello engineer
Plinio Bringhenti, which he called “steam regenerative accumulators” (U.K.
Patent, 1922; Ginori Conti, 1924a; Parri, 2013a) and which Ginori Conti
called “depurators” (Ginori Conti, 1924b); see Fig. 7. This new design
eliminated the corrosion-prone tubes altogether and relied on a direct mixing
pro-cess in which the natural gas-laden geosteam (GS) was admitted via a
perforated pipe into a large horizontal vessel (C) containing clean liquid
water. The steam condensed, released the NCG, and heated the water which
was then flashed into steam in a large ver-tical chamber (F). The NCG were
vented to the atmosphere along
Fig. 7. Bringhenti boiler (“depurator”) (see nomenclature).
Source: After Parri (2013a,b).
295
Fig. 8. Upper portion of Bringhenti boilers at Larderello 1 power station.
Source: Parri (2013a,b).
with a small amount of steam (V). The resultant clean steam (CS) retained
only about 10% of the natural NCG, or about 0.5% (wt.) of steam, making it
highly suitable for use in steam turbines (Bullard, 1962). Fig. 8 shows the
upper portion of the Bringhenti boilers that replaced the Kestner boilers in the
Larderello 1 plant.
3.4. Larderello 2 power station: upgraded commercial indirect cycle
A new power station was built next to Larderello 1 in 1939. This was
designated Larderello 2 and housed 4 × 25 MW and 2 × 9 MW turbine units
that were called “Cycle 2” units. It employed 28 new vertical, surface-type
heat exchangers for the generation of pure steam (see Figs. 9 and 10) while
still allowing for the simulta-neous extraction of boric minerals from
geosteam condensate and gaseous compounds from the NCG stream.
Additional steam was raised in horizontal heat exchangers H1 and H2 from
the geosteam condensate. The Bringhenti direct-contact evaporators had
proved less than satisfactory owing to the loss of steam at the NCG vent (see
V in Fig. 7), and eventually were replaced in Larderello 1.
The new design included direct-contact mixing condensers (see C in Fig.
9) with the Possera stream serving as the source for fresh cooling tower make-
up water via a pump station on its bank. The pump house can be seen in the
diorama of Larderello 2 in Fig. 11.
During the spring of 1944 toward the end of World War II, power stations
Larderello 1 and Larderello 2, along with all the other plants in the area, were
destroyed as a result of military action, except for the first direct-intake,
exhausting-to-atmosphere 23 kW exper-imental unit at Serrazzano which
somehow survived. Most of the damage to the power stations was caused by
Allied Forces bomb-ings, while wells and pipelines were destroyed by
retreating Axis Forces using planted explosive charges.
As soon as stability returned to the region, all of the plants were rapidly
rebuilt starting in 1945. The same “Indirect Cycle 2” power units that existed
before the war were re-installed. But with advances in metallurgy and the
newer wells producing higher-pressure steam, over time the units were
replaced by direct-steam
296 R. DiPippo / Geothermics 53 (2015) 291–307
Fig. 9. Simplified flow diagram for plants at Larderello 2. Left side of plant processed natural steam to produce purified steam and allowed recovery of boric minerals; right side generated electricity
(see nomenclature).
systems (see Section 3.5). Fig. 12 shows the layout of Larderello 2 and a
satellite view of the plant site in 2013, 21 years after it was decommissioned
in 1992 (Parri, 2013a).
3.5. Larderello “Direct Cycle” systems
Once the problem of corrosion from the geothermal steam in the turbines
was overcome through advances in metallurgy, and new deeper wells were
drilled that yielded higher pressure steam, it became feasible to use the natural
steam directly to drive the turbines, thereby eliminating the heat exchangers
and their cost, complexity and thermodynamic losses. Large turbo-
compressors, directly coupled to the turbines or driven by electric motors,
were used to extract the NCG and create the required vacuum at turbine
exhaust, albeit while incurring a significant parasitic load.
The simplest direct configuration “Cycle 1” is shown in Fig. 13. The
designs were called “cycles” but they are not true thermody-namic cycles,
rather a series of processes. “Cycle 1” consisted of a power plant in which the
geosteam was sent directly to a turbine and the turbine discharged the exhaust
steam into the atmospheric without using a condenser. While simple and
inexpensive, it wasted about half of the thermodynamic potential of the steam.
During the time when mineral recovery was economic, the exhaust steam was
used to evaporate the boric waters, and other compounds were produced from
the discharge steam itself. These plants were espe-cially used in certain
production areas where the steam carried very high concentrations of NCG.
The first one was the afore-mentioned
Fig. 10. Larderello 2 Bringhenti evaporators (vertical elements only shown), after
reconstruction following WW II.
Source: Zancani (1975).
23 kW unit installed at Serrazzano in 1923; “Cycle 1” plants are no longer
used in Italy.
“Cycle 3” plants (Fig. 14) used condensing turbines with tur-
bocompressors for NCG removal. They eventually became the standard
design for all Italian geothermal power plants fed with natural steam. This
included all plants in the areas of Larderello and nearby towns, as well as the
areas of Travale/Radicondoli and, until recently, Bagnore and Piancastagnaio
(Di Mario, 1961).
Most recently, ENEL has further standardized their dry steam plants by
adopting two power ratings: 20 MW and 60 MW; see Figs. 15 and 16. These
plants use mechanical induced draft water cooling towers instead of the iconic
hyperboloid concrete natural draft towers. Generally the 20 MW units have 3-
cell cooling tow-ers whereas the 60 MW units have 8-cell towers. These
plants also employ axial-discharge turbines, allowing all major equipment,
including the condensers, to be mounted at ground level, thereby shortening
construction time and reducing installation costs.
3.6. Performance of Italian plants
While it is possible for us today to calculate the efficiency of those early
machines from a few facts, there is no mention of power plant thermodynamic
efficiency per se in the literature of the early twentieth century (Anon., 1915,
1918a,b, 1919, 1920a,b, 1924; Funaioli, 1918; Hahn, 1923; Read, 1924;
Anderson and Hall, 1973). Eqs. (1)–(4), may be used, as appropriate, to assess
the performance of these plants.
In the very first plant devised by Raynaut, the geothermal fluid, natural
steam, was used solely for its thermal energy as in a modern binary plant, but
the pure steam from the turbine was simply dis-charged to the atmosphere.
Therefore, this plant does not constitute a true thermodynamic cycle owing to
the fact that the turbine was not fitted with a condenser. With the exception of
the prototype unit described in Section 3 and below, all other Italian
geothermal plants are effectively once-through systems with the geosteam
exe-cuting several processes without being recycled. Thus the thermal
efficiency equation, Eq. (2), can only be applied to the Larderello 1 prototype
unit. Eqs. (1), (3) and (4) are generally applicable and will be used to assess
all the Italian geothermal plants where data is available.
3.6.1. Prototype commercial 250 kW plant
As a general note, interpreting the pressures reported in the old technical
literature is often problematic because the writers do not always distinguish
between gauge and absolute pressures. Even when the distinction is made,
different sources disagree on the val-ues for the same plant. Nor is it clear
whether the local barometric pressure or standard atmospheric pressure was
used to convert from gauge pressures to absolute pressures.
It is clear that the wells at Larderello in the earliest decades of the
twentieth century were shallow, being typically 60–150 m
 R. DiPippo / Geothermics 53 (2015) 291–307 297

Fig. 11. Larderello 2 model at ENEL Geomuseo.

Source: After ENEL (2014).

Fig. 12. Larderello 2: (L) layout, after (Chierici, 1961); (R) Google Earth (2014a).

deep, able to yield on average about 2.8 kg/s of slightly superheated steam.
Whereas some of the most powerful wells could have had closed-in pressures
as high as 411 kPa,a (Anon., 1918a), by the time the steam had flowed about
150 m on average through rough iron pipes from the wellhead to the
powerhouse, the pressure losses would have been significant.

Regarding the prototype 250 kW plant (Section 3.2), according to a 1915

article in Scientific American (Anon., 1915), the geosteam mass flow rate into
the Prache & Bouillon evaporator was 0.832 kg/s at a pressure of 450.8 kPa,a.
The boiler was able to generate about 0.693 kg/s of pure saturated steam at
405.2 kPa,a. The geothermal steam temperature, which depended on the depth
of the well, and the gas content varied from well to well. Assuming a few
degrees of superheat, the inlet geosteam temperature might have been about
◦
150 C; the pure steam temperature that corresponds to the cited pressure is
◦
about 144 C.

Fig. 13. “Cycle 1” – noncondensing, discharge-to-atmosphere power plant (see nomenclature).
Recently, Parri (2013b) wrote that the turbine inlet pressure for the 250
kW unit was about 0.25 atm, gauge or 121.6 kPa,a. He esti-mated the
geosteam pressure at 2.25 atm,a or 227.9 kPa,a. These values are considerably
lower than the values cited above as given in Anon. (1915) and a bit lower
than those quoted by Ginori Conti
298 R. DiPippo / Geothermics 53 (2015) 291–307

Fig. 14. “Cycle 3” – modern plant design for Larderello and neighboring production areas; both natural draft (shown) and mechanical induced draft cooling towers are in use (see nomenclature).

Source: DiPippo (2012).

Fig. 15. ENEL standard dry steam power plant (see nomenclature).
Source: Modified from DiPippo (2012).

Fig. 16. Aerial view standard Larderello designs: 20 MW Chiusdino (L) and 60 MW Farinello (R) power plants.
Source: Google Earth (2014a).
 R. DiPippo / Geothermics 53 (2015) 291–307 299

(1917), namely 248.2 kPa,a. Parri calculated the geosteam pres-sure from
information on the heat exchangers and gas content. His pressures align well
with the pressures found in the litera-ture for the 7500 kW power plant
described below in Section 3.6.2, and it is his contention that the steam
conditions for the 250 kW prototype and the commercial 2500 kW units were
essentially the same (Pers. Comm., Parri, April 3, 2014). However, if the 250
kW unit used steam from one of the higher pressure wells whereas the larger
plant employed a number of more average wells, then the two plants could
have operated with different steam pressures. Note that the geosteam mass
flow rate of 0.832 kg/s (Anon., 1915) is less than the average for wells drilled
at that time, namely 2.8 kg/s (Ginori Conti, 1924b), so that a single well could
have supplied the prototype unit.

Based on the mass flow rate data (Anon., 1915) and the tur-bine rating,
the prototype unit had a net SSC of 16.6 kg/kWh. For the reported conditions,
the thermal efficiency of this Larderello basic Rankine cycle was 10.3%. The
utilization efficiency was 25.5%, taking the exergy of the geosteam
uncorrected for NCG content. Taking into account the degradation of the
steam exergy caused by the NCG would raise the utilization by some 5% to
about 27%.
The thermal efficiency is similar to what is being achieved today in simple
geothermal binary plants of the organic Rankine cycle type (ORC). The
utilization efficiency is lower than for today’s geothermal steam plants, but in
1913 it was about the same as for conventional coal-fired plants.

Fig. 17. Flow diagram and partial heat balance for “Cycle 2” plant.
As a point of comparison, the most efficient modern geothermal dry steam Source: After Parri (2013a,b).
plant, the original SMUDGEO#1 plant at The Geysers (California, USA), had
a net SSC of 6.59 kg/kWh. It is important to note for this comparison that the
Larderello plant was an indirect steam system whereas The Geysers unit was process. Fig. 18 is a scale temperature-heat transfer diagram for the evaporator
a direct steam sys-tem. Furthermore, the geosteam temperature at The showing the non-isothermal condensing process for the geosteam and the
◦
Geysers was about 25 C higher than the Larderello prototype, and the NCG isothermal evaporation of the purified steam. Fig. 19 is a temperature-entropy
in the Larderello steam averaged ∼5% (wt.), whereas at the SMUDGEO#1 diagram for the processes involved in the operations; Fig. 20 shows the
plant they were ∼0.4% (wt.). These are important differences in favor of the turbine process in detail. States 2 and 3 have essentially the same
SMUDGEO#1 plant. thermodynamic properties but differ in mass flow rate due to the release of the
NCG and some steam from the deaerator. Note that the loss in exergy from the
steam at the wellhead (state 1) to the turbine inlet (state 5) is about 15%. This
3.6.2. Commercial 7500 kW plant is the price that is paid for ridding the steam of NCG. The turbine isentropic
Regarding the 7500 kW (3 × 2500 kW) plant (Section 3.3), the pure steam efficiency is 70.8% and the net utilization efficiency is 35.0% based on the
◦ wellhead exergy of the steam. “Indirect Cycle 2” power plants were
was produced at a temperature of 110 C and an absolute pressure of 152
discontinued
kPa,a, but the turbines were optimized for an inlet steam pressure of only
126.6 kPa,a (Ginori Conti, 1924b; Anon., 1918a). Each of the evaporators was
capable of delivering 6000 kg/h; thus each separator fed by two evaporators
delivered up to 12,000 kg/h of pure steam. Each turbine required about 35,000
kg/h of pure steam to generate 3000 kW (gross) and 2500 kW (net), giving a
net pure SSC of 14 kg/kWh. Note that only three sets of the four installed
Kestner boilers (Figs. 5 and 6) were needed per unit, with one set held in
reserve. Assuming that about 95% of the natural steam is converted to
purified steam for the tur-bine (roughly 5% is lost with the NCG and
geosteam condensate), about 36,800 kg/h of geosteam would be needed per
unit. Thus the net SSC for the geosteam would be 14.7 kg/kWh. The plant as
a whole had a net utilization efficiency of about 30.7%, based on an average
◦ ◦
geosteam temperature of 140 C and a dead-state at 20 C.

3.6.3. Commercial “Indirect Cycle 2” 12,000 kW units

These units replaced the original commercial 2500 kW units and were
described in Section 3.3; a simplified flow and heat balance diagram is given
in Fig. 17, and this will serve as the basis for the analysis that follows. The
thermodynamic properties at the designated states shown in Fig. 17 were
found using Refprop and are summarized in Table 1. The natural geosteam
carries about 2.9% CO2 (wt.), the bulk of which is removed in the deaerator,
leaving about 0.5% CO2 in the steam going to the turbine. The results shown
Fig. 18. Evaporator temperature–heat transfer diagram for Larderello “Cycle 2” sys-tem.
Table 1 ignore the effect of the CO2 in the turbine expansion Geosteam is assumed to contain 2.85% (wt.) CO2 ; 0.5% CO2 in pure steam is neglected.
300 R. DiPippo / Geothermics 53 (2015) 291–307

Table 1
State-point properties for Larderello 2 power plants.
State ◦ P (MPa) s (kJ/kg K) h (kJ/kg) x m˙ (kg/s) e (kJ/kg) ˙
T ( C)
E (kW)
1 140 0.3432 6.9569 2735.2 47.78 698.75 33,385
2 121 0.3334 1.5386 508.15 47.78 60.026 2868
3 121 0.3334 1.5386 508.15 45.83 60.026 2751
4 115 0.245 1.4736 482.65 45.83 53.566 2455
5 120 0.1961 7.1357 2706.2 45 617.29 27,778
6 47.3 0.01079 7.5327 2397.6 0.9209 45
6f 47.3 0.01079 0.6687 198.03 4.918
6g 47.3 0.01079 8.1222 2586.5
6s 47.3 0.01079 7.1357 2270.4
7 40 0.01079 0.5724 167.54
0 20 0.096 0.2965 84.00 0

presented here have been replaced with modern units. The ther-mal efficiency
is not included for the reasons cited earlier in this section. To obtain the net
power, a generator efficiency of 95% was assumed and all parasitic loads were
subtracted.
The exergy took into account the local dead-state temperature that varied
from plant to plant. The specific exergy was corrected for NCG content using
a rule of 1% loss in exergy for each 1% NCG, which is a very good
approximation for gas concentrations up to about 10% (wt.). This leads to
higher utilization efficiencies than using pure steam at the same temperature.
The noncondensing “Cycle 1” plants require about twice as much steam flow
per unit of electrical output than the condensing “Cycle 3” plants. Several of
these plants were comprised of multiple units; total power and mass flows are
shown. All plants, except the two at Mt. Amiata, used low-level direct-contact
barometric condensers with natural draft cooling towers and multistage
centrifugal turbocompressors with interstage gas coolers for NCG removal.
The relationship between the net SSC and the net utilization efficiency is
shown in Fig. 21.
Fig. 19. Temperature-entropy process diagram for Larderello 2 original plants.

in 1968 owing to their complexity, difficulty in maintenance, and high cost in
favor of the simpler “Direct Cycle” systems.
3.6.4. Selected plants from 1960 to 1969
Data presented in Cataldi et al. (1970) can be analyzed to show
efficiencies for some of the original plants at Larderello and nearby regions
from 1960 to 1969. Where data permitted, calculations were made for the
beginning and end of that decade. Table 2 gives some particulars on selected
original plants along with calculated performance metrics. It should be noted
that the plants chosen and
3.6.5. Typical modern standard design plants
Table 3 gives some particulars on the modern ENEL standard dry steam
plants (ENEL, 1995) along with calculated performance metrics. These
systems have largely replaced the older units and are designated by ENEL as
Nuova Larderello (replaced Larderello 3), Nuova Gabbro (replaced Gabbro),
etc. They are also used in all new units such as Carboli 1 and 2, Monteverdi 1
and 2, and others. They are flexible and can be adapted to various steam
conditions as shown in Table 3 by the maximum and minimum of steam tem-
perature, pressure and NCG percentage. The best performance is attained
using the highest pressure, other factors being equal.

Fig. 20. Detail of temperature-entropy process diagram for Larderello 2 original

plants. Fig. 21. Net utilization efficiency as a function of net SSC for the plants in Table 1.
 R. DiPippo / Geothermics 53 (2015) 291–307 301

Table 2
Performance of some ENEL plants: 1960–1969.
Plant name ◦ NCG % (wt.) m˙ (kg/s) ˙ ˙ U,G (%) U,N (%)
T1 ( C) P1 (kPa,a) SSCN (kg/kWh)
W G (MW) W N (MW)
Larderello region: condensing “Cycle 3” units
a 205 353.0 7.0 127.8 44.0 32.4 14.20 49.6 36.5
Larderello 2
b
Larderello 2 198 340.8 7.3 145.0 69.0 48.4 10.79 69.0 48.4
a
Larderello 3 190 451.1 5.0 305.6 114.0 94.1 11.69 48.8 40.3
b 210 416.8 7.0 245.8 120.0 86.5 10.23 65.3 47.0
Larderello 3
Lago region: condensing “Cycle 3” units
a 185 441.3 3.5 77.8 28.5 28.7 9.76 47.6 47.9
Serrazzano
b
Serrazzano 192 514.9 3.2 84.4 32.0 30.8 9.86 48.1 46.3
a
Sasso 2 190 470.7 3.0 38.9 15.7 15.5 9.03 51.4 50.8
b
Sasso 2 187 529.6 2.9 47.2 15.7 18.7 9.09 42.1 50.1
a
Monterotondo 175 460.9 2.5 38.9 12.5 14.6 9.59 41.5 48.4
b 172 441.3 2.2 38.9 12.5 12.4 11.29 41.7 41.4
Monterotondo
Mt. Amiata region: noncondensing “Cycle 1” units
b 141 343.2 8.0 16.1 3.5 2.0 28.98 32.2 18.4
Bagnore 2
b 185 843.4 19 67.8 15.0 12.9 18.92 31.4 27.0
Piancastagnaio
Source: Raw data from Cataldi et al. (1970).
a
1960.
b
1969.

Table 3
Performance of standard dry steam power plants at ENEL geothermal fields.
◦ NCG % (wt.) m˙ (kg/s) ˙ ˙ SSC (kg/kWh) U,G (%)
T1 ( C) P1 (kPa,a) U,N (%)
W G (kW) W N (kW)
Standard 20 MW plant
b a a 15.3 7200 5892 7.65 55.1 45.1
280 500 2
b a b
280 500 12 15.3 7200 4712 7.65 61.4 40.2
b b a
280 2000 2 30.6 19,000 17,515 5.80 61.5 56.7
b b b 30.6 19,000 16,335 5.80 68.5 58.9
280 2000 12
Standard 60 MW plant
b a a 55.5 26,600 23,251 7.51 57.4 50.2
260 500 2
b a
260 500 5b 55.5 26,600 21,651 7.51 59.2 48.2
b b a
260 1200 2 111 63,900 59,991 6.25 61.5 57.7
b b b 111 63,900 58,391 6.25 63.4 57.9
260 1200 5
◦
All turbines exhaust at 8 kPa,a; dead-state temperature, T0 = 18.5 C.
a b
Minimum.
Maximum.

As in Table 2, the specific exergy has been adjusted to account for the
presence of the NCG. The net power was obtained by assuming a generator
efficiency of 98.5% and subtracting the parasitic power requirements for
NCG compressors, the cooling tower fans, and the cooling water circulating
◦ arrangement of the plant was complex owing to an attempt to combine it with
pumps. The dead-state temperature was taken as 18.5 C for all cases.
The utilization efficiencies are excellent. For the same steam temperature
and pressure, and when the pressure is high, higher NCG yield higher net
efficiencies because the reduction in exergy overshadows the reduction in net
power caused by the need for higher gas compressor power. When the steam
pressure is low, this is not true.
twentieth century because of its distinctive Geyser Valley (Keam, 1963). After
much drilling, testing, research and experimentation, a design for a
geothermal flash plant took shape. The plant would come on-line in several
stages starting in 1958 with two 6.5 MW high-pressure units. The design and
a heavy water production facility. This led to a 3-level separation process
which unduly complicated the design. To make matters worse, after the plant
entered into construction, the heavy water facility was can-celed, but the
power plant was built as designed. Fig. 22 is a simplified flow diagram for the
original Wairakei multi-level flash plant (DiPippo, 1980). A new plant is being
constructed as of 2014 to replace the original one.

4. Wairakei – first commercial flash-steam geothermal power
plant
New Zealand’s North Island is a highly active volcanic area. Numerous
volcanoes dot the landscape and their eruptions and been spectacular and
deadly. The natural thermal activity has been known and used for many
purposes by indigenous peoples, but after the successful exploitation of
geothermal energy for electric power in Italy, the New Zealand electric
authority set about to develop their own geothermal fields. The prob-lem
facing them was that their resources were not as easy to commercialize; their
reservoirs were liquid-dominated, not vapor-dominated. An entirely new
energy conversion system would be needed.
Wairakei is but one of the many geothermal areas on the North Island. It
was a very popular tourist destination in the early
A power station with so many small units is not representative of modern
flash technology. It is however of historical interest. Its per-formance can be
determined from the literature (DiPippo, 1980). Taken as a whole, the thirteen
turbine-generator units required 223.8 kg/s of high-pressure steam, 895.1 kg/s
of high-pressure liq-uid, 35.45 kg/s of intermediate-pressure steam, and 53.17
kg/s of intermediate-pressure liquid; the total exergy rate into the plant was
351.06 MW and the power output was 192.6 MW. Thus the plant had a
utilization efficiency of 54.9%. This value compares very well with the
original condensing dry steam units and the mod-ern low-pressure Larderello
units and with modern New Zealand geothermal plants. For example, the 29
MW (net) Rotokawa I flash-binary plant, built in 1997 about 8 km from
Wairakei, had a net utilization efficiency of 41.2%, and the 142 MW (net)
Taonga triple-flash plant that came on line in 2010 adjacent to Rotokawa had
a net utilization efficiency of 57.2% (DiPippo, 2013).
302 R. DiPippo / Geothermics 53 (2015) 291–307

Fig. 22. Flow diagram for original Wairakei power station (see nomenclature).
Source: After DiPippo (1980).

5. Other early developments in geothermal power
5.1. Significant milestones
While Italy and New Zealand are recognized as pioneers in commercial
geothermal dry steam and flash-steam power plants, respectively, there were
other countries that were experimenting with their own geothermal resources.
Table 4 lists some significant
milestones that helped pave the way for worldwide expansion of geothermal
power to the 28 nations that now have or had operat-ing plants (DiPippo,
2012). The table is not all-inclusive but focuses on the initial plants in various
countries and includes a variety of energy conversion systems. The units listed
in the table as having a rating of less than 1 MW no longer exist.
Table 4 shows that the first unit to use wet steam was a tiny experimental
unit at Beppu in Japan in 1925. The first flash unit

Table 4
Partial chronology of geothermal plants prior to 1980; data from various sources.

Year Plant Country MW effective Type

1904 Ginori Conti Italy 0.01 Dry steam
1913 Larderello 1 Italy 0.18 Dry steam
1925 Beppu Japan 0.00112 Wet steam
1923 Geysers (J.D. Grant) U.S.A. 0.0186 Dry steam
1925 Geysers (Resort hotel) U.S.A. 0.25 Dry steam
1942 Ischia Italy 0.25 Binary, C2 H5 Cl
1946 Onuma Japan 0.003 Wet steam
1946 Onuma Japan 0.008 Wet steam
1951 Hakuryu Japan 0.03 1-flash
1952 Ischia Italy 0.275 1-flash
1953 Kiabukwa D.R. of Congo 0.275 Vacuum flash
1958 Wairakei New Zealand 6.5 1-flash
1959 Pathé Mexico 3.5 1-flash, non-cond.
1959 Wairakei New Zealand 33.6 2- and 3-flash
1960 Geysers U.1 U.S.A. 11 Dry steam
1961 Kawerau New Zealand 10 1-flash
1966 Matsukawa Japan 20 Dry steam
1967 Otake Japan 10 1-flash
1967 Paratunka Russia 0.5 Binary, CCl2 F2
1967 Pauzhetka Russia 4 1-flash
1969 Namafjall Iceland 3.2 1-flash, non-cond.
1970 Dengwu U.1 China 0.86 1-flash
1971 Huailai China 0.285 Binary, C2 H5 Cl
1971 Wentang China 0.05 Binary, C2 H5 Cl
1973 Cerro Prieto Mexico 35 1-flash
1974 Kızıldere Turkey 0.5 1-flash
1975 Ahuachapán U.1 El Salvador 28 1-flash
1975 Huitang China 0.3 1-flash
1977 Dengwu U.2 China 0.2 Binary, i-C4 H10
1977 Krafla Iceland 28 2-flash
1977 Leyte Philippines 3 1-flash
1977 Yangbajing China 1 1-flash
1978 Kamojang Indonesia 0.25 Dry steam
1979 Magmamax U.S.A. 11
Binary, i-C4 H10 and C3 H 8
 R. DiPippo / Geothermics 53 (2015) 291–307
Fig. 23. Simplified flow diagram for Kiabukwa vacuum-flash plant (see nomencla-ture).
Source: After Rollet (1957).
to operate on a liquid-dominated reservoir was a 30 kW unit at Hakuryu, also
in Japan, in 1951 (DiPippo, 2012). This was followed a year later by a 275
kW flash unit on the Italian island of Ischia. Since more is known about the
latter plant than the former, it will be described in Section 5.4.
The first binary plant appears to be the small experimental unit also on
Ischia in 1942 (Sommaruga, 2010). Some earlier writings credited the 1967
Russian plant at Paratunka as being the first binary plant, and others have
indicated that the first one was at Kiabukwa in the Democratic Republic of
Congo in 1953. However, the literature is clear that Kiabukwa was not a
binary plant, but a single-flash plant of the vacuum-flash type (Anon., 1952;
Rollet, 1957; Armstead, 1983).
Scant information is available on most of the very small early plants, so in
general it is not possible to calculate their efficien-cies. However, three of
them, the Kiabukwa plant (1953) and the two on Ischia – a binary plant
(1942) and a flash plant (1952), all often overlooked or forgotten, are
interesting and worthy of study. Fortunately there is sufficient information
available to allow approximate analyses of their operations.
5.2. Kiabukwa vacuum-flash plant – first geothermal plant in Africa
Kiabukwa was the first and only vacuum-flash plant known to exist, i.e.,
the steam entering the turbine was at sub-atmospheric pressure; see Fig. 23.
Such turbines routinely operate as the low-pressure stages in conventional
fossil and nuclear power plants, but they have never been used in as stand-
alone machine in a geothermal plant, except for Kiabukwa. This plant, largely
forgot-ten, is worthy of recognition given the many challenges that had to be
overcome to put it into operation (Rollet, 1957). It was located in Katanga
province of the then-Belgian Congo, which is now the Democratic Republic
of Congo, about 15 km east of Lake Kabamba. The plant was built to supply
electricity to the Bukena cassiterite and columbite mine of the Société
d’Exploitation et de Recherches Minières au Katanga, or SERMIKAT, some
10 km to the north.
The area is not volcanic but has several hot springs, one of which was the
◦
source of the geofluid to power the plant. The hot spring fed its 91 C water
into a degasser (or deaerator) and thence to a flash chamber where a portion
of the water evaporated. The steam so generated was superheated using the
NCG ejector spent steam, which itself had been raised from a small wood-
fired auxiliary boiler. The vacuum for the flash evaporator and for the steam
tur-bine condenser was maintained by a barometric pit and a set of pumps.
Since the area is quite arid, cooling water had to be taken from the spring
itself and cooled in a refrigerator of sorts. Since the load varied over a 24-
hour period depending on the needs of the mine, the cooling water was stored
in a pond, and when the
303
electrical demand on the plant was low, the excess power was used to pump
the cool water to a holding pond at a higher eleva-tion. In this way when the
full demand returned, the cooling water flowed by gravity to the plant,
allowing for a more efficient opera-tion. In that sense, Kiabukwa could be
considered a kind of hybrid geothermal/pumped-storage plant.
Based on the partial heat balance diagram in Anon. (1952), one can
determine the performance of the Kiabukwa unit. Using a hot spring flow rate
◦
of 33.4 L/s, a geofluid temperature of 91 C at the local barometric pressure
◦
of 94 kPa, a turbine inlet temperature of 79.4 C (superheated), pressure of
◦
25.2 kPa,a (optimized), and a condensing temperature of 31.1 C, the
Kiabukwa unit likely had a net power output of about 229 kW, a specific
geofluid consump-tion of about 506 kg/kWh and a utilization efficiency of
25.7%. These values do not account for the input from the wood-fired
auxiliary boiler that produced the steam for the 2-stage steam jet ejectors, nor
the power needed to run the fans in the cooling tower.
The plant operated for seven years from 1953 to 1960. At the end of the
1950s with the onset of unrest in the cause of independence and the ensuing
Congolese civil war, the plant went idle and never returned to service. Fig. 24
shows two photographs of the plant (Rollet, 1957).
5.3. Ischia binary plant – first binary geothermal power plant
This and the following section are mainly drawn from a paper by
Sommaruga (2010). The island of Ischia is a resurgent caldera lying off the
west coast of Italy about 22 km from the thermally active Phlegrean Fields.
◦
The readily accessible thermal waters with tem-peratures from 30 to 99 C
have been exploited for recreational and balneo-therapeutic purposes since the
time of the ancient Romans. It remains a popular resort area with some 200
spa hotels and swim-ming pools throughout the island, including the beaches
on the western shore where the early power developments took place.
While the geothermal resource at Ischia has been well docu-mented
scientifically, e.g. (Sbrana et al., 2010a,b; Inguaggiato and Pecoraino, 2000),
scant mention is made of the novel binary power plant on this island. Many
shallow and a few deep wells were drilled from 1939 to 1955 including well
I3 that was about 1.2 km inland from the western shore near Citara at an
◦
elevation of about 150–160 masl. Well I3 reached 250 C at a depth of 1051
m (Sbrana et al., 2010a).
The pioneering binary plant was designed in 1939, installed in 1940 and
ran for a couple of years until 1943. Given that this took place during WWII,
it is not surprising that very little about this plant has been published. It was
located on the beach at Citara and was supplied by a well that produced a
3
mixture of about 100 t/h (27.8 kg/s) of saturated steam and about 70 m /h (18
◦
kg/s) of hot water at 130 C at the wellhead (Sommaruga, 2010). The power
cycle used ethyl chloride, C2 H5 Cl, as the working fluid, had an installed
capacity of 300 kW, and an effective rating of 250 kW (Pers. comm., R.
Cataldi, March 20, 2014).
At that time C2 H5 Cl served as a refrigerant, but nowadays it is used
mainly for medicinal purposes. From Table 4 it may be seen that ethyl
chloride was also used as the working fluid in two Chi-nese binary plants in
the early 1950s. Property data for C 2 H5 Cl is hard to find but a limited set of
saturation properties was obtained (ASRE, 1926) to allow an estimate of the
Ischia plant performance. Assuming that a side stream of saturated steam was
used to supply heat to the small binary cycle, that the turbine inlet temperature
◦ ◦
was 120 C, and the condensing temperature was 35 C, then for a net power
of 250 kW, the mass flow of C 2 H5 Cl would have to have been about 4.5
kg/s. It would take only about 0.93 kg/s of steam condensing at a constant 130
◦
C (neglecting the effect of any NCG) to provide all the heat needed to
preheat and evaporate the ethyl chloride.
304 R. DiPippo / Geothermics 53 (2015) 291–307

Fig. 24. Kiabukwa vacuum-flash plant: (L) powerhouse; (R) power island with inlet pipe, turbine, gear box, alternator and condenser (below).
Source: After Rollet (1957).

The cycle thermal efficiency would have been about 12.4% and the net
utilization efficiency, based on the amount of steam needed, would be about
43%, an impressive value. However, it is very unlikely that the well could
have been throttled and made to flow steadily at such a low rate. Thus, the
effective utiliza-tion efficiency would be significantly lower if the bulk of the
flow was simply wasted. Assuming the well could be operated at half of full
flow, the net utilization efficiency would be only about 9%.
5.4. Ischia flash plant – early single-flash geothermal power plant
unit was put into operation from 1952 to 1954. It was a 500 kW unit with an
effective rating of 275 kW. Although Sommaruga (2010) does not say if the
flash unit used the same well as the earlier binary, given their proximity, it is
possible.
The flash unit employed a back-pressure steam turbine. The steam was
obtained by separation of a two-phase mixture from a well that produced 100
t/h (27.8 kg/s) of steam and water at a wellhead dryness fraction of 0.144 at
◦
138 C. The tests were suspended in 1954 because of low power output and
tem-perature, and the nationalization of private power companies, one of
which, namely SAFEN of Naples, had constructed the plant.

Not far from the small binary plant that was located on the beach near Today the area that hosted both the binary and flash plants is home to
Citara on the west side of Ischia, an experimental single-flash many resort hotels and bathing spas; see Fig. 25. The

Fig. 25. Satellite view of the southern section of Citara beach where numerous thermal manifestations and geothermal wells are located, along with many spa resorts; north is vertically up.

Source: image from Google Earth (2014b).

 R. DiPippo / Geothermics 53 (2015) 291–307 305

Table 5
Performance of selected plants of various types, multiple references.
No. in Fig. 26 Plant name Year ◦ ˙ ˙ U,G (%) U,N (%)
Tg ( C) m˙g (kg/s) TH (%) SGFCN (kg/kWh)
W G (MW) W N (MW)
Dry steam condensing plants (except as noted)
1 Larderello Proto. 1913 140 0.832 0.25 0.18 10.3 16.6 35.4 25.5
2 Larderello 1 1916 140 28.8 9.0 7.5 N.A. 14.0 36.8 30.7
3 Larderello 1 1930 140 47.8 12.5 11.7 N.A. 15.0 37.4 35.0
4 Larderello 2 1960 205 127.8 44.0 32.4 N.A. 14.2 49.6 36.5
5 Geysers U. 1 1960 176 31.6 12.5 12.1 N.A. 9.40 47.3 45.8
6 Larderello 3 1960 190 305.6 114 94.1 N.A. 11.7 48.8 40.3
7 Matsukawa 1966 147 57.5 20.0 19.2 N.A. 10.8 48.2 46.3
8 Larderello 2 1969 198 145.0 69.0 48.4 N.A. 10.8 69.0 48.4
9 Larderello 3 1969 210 245.8 120.0 86.5 N.A. 10.2 65.3 47.0
10 a 1969 183 60.9 15.0 14.3 N.A. 15.4 36.2 34.4
Piancastagnaio
11 Geysers U.5 1971 179 122.0 55.0 53.0 N.A. 8.29 53.5 51.5
12 SMUDGEO#1 1983 176 121.1 72.3 66.0 N.A. 6.60 71.2 65.0
13 b 2000 260 55.5 26.6 23.3 N.A. 7.51 63.4 55.4
Larderello
Single-flash plants
14 Eburru WHU 2012 270 23.5 2.40 2.25 N.A. 37.7 32.3 30.3
15 Hellisheidi LPU 2007 175 e 32.0 30.0 N.A. 41.0 40.1 37.6
342
Double-flash plants
16 Heber 1 1985 182 1033 52.0 47.0 N.A. 79.1 35.4 32.0
17 Germencik 2009 218 694.4 47.3 45.0 N.A. 52.7 33.2 31.6
Triple-flash plants
18 Wairakei 1963 260 1207 192.6 188 N.A. 23.0 54.9 53.6
19 Taonga 2010 335 525 149.5 142 N.A. 13.2 60.1 57.2
Binary plants
20 Paratunka 1967 81 77.8 0.68 0.44 5.8 412 23.0 15.0
21 Raft River DOE 1981 143 131.0 6.1 4.6 10.4 89 52.3 39.7
22 Wabuska 1984 105 51.7 0.84 0.60 8.0 221 37.3 26.6
23 Heber 2 1993 165 756.0 48.0 33.0 10.6 82.5 56.1 38.6
24 Miravalles U.5 2004 165 857.1 19.6 17.5 16.3 176.3 21.8 19.5
25 Las Pailas 2011 240 c 41.6 35.0 15.1 24 39.5 33.2
233.4
Flash-binary plant
26 Rotokawa I 1997 335 d 29 24 N.A. 18.5 49.8 41.2
123.1
f h
Rotokawa I 1997 107 38.9 10.4 10.0 13.2 14.0 13.0 12.5
g 1997 224 84.2 5.5 5.0 18.5 60.6 27.5 25.0
Rotokawa I
a
Noncondensing.
c
b Typical 20 MW standard unit, low pressure and low NCG. 44.5
kg/s steam and 188.89 kg/s liquid.
d e
38.9 kg/s steam and 84.2 kg/s liquid. 300
kg/s liquid and 42 kg/s steam.
f g
Steam-heated binary cycles.
h
Brine-heated binary cycle.
Quality = 0.873.

building that housed the experimental flash power station is now a beach bar
and restaurant at Citara (Sommaruga, 2010).

6. Performance of selected dry steam, flash, binary, and flash-

binary plants

Table 5 lists the conditions at several diverse geothermal power plants and
their performance metrics, including some of those which have been
discussed above for comparison. Fig. 26 presents the net utilization efficiency
for the numbered plants as a function of geofluid reservoir specific exergy.
Fig. 27 shows how the net uti-lization efficiency has evolved over the time
since the inception of geothermal power plants.

7. Conclusions and final thoughts

Geothermal power plants have evolved from relatively simple systems

designed to work on dry steam to complicated multi-flash and hybrid systems
designed to operate on liquid-dominated reser-voirs representing a wide range
of resource temperatures.
The performance of a geothermal power plant may be captured in a Fig. 26. Net utilization efficiency vs. specific geofluid exergy for numbered plants in Table 5. B
number of ways from the practical specific geofluid consump-tion SGC – binary, 2B – dual-pressure binary, 1F – single flash, 2F – double flash, 3F – triple flash, SB –
which is site-specific, to thermal efficiency TH which applies strictly to binary steam binary, FB – flash binary.
cycle plants, to utilization efficiency U
306 R. DiPippo / Geothermics 53 (2015) 291–307
Fig. 27. Evolution of net utilization efficiency for all numbered plants listed in Table 5.
which is based on the Second Law of thermodynamics and which applies to
all kinds of power plants.
The efficiency at which a given power plant operates hinges on many
factors, some dependent on the kinds of equipment used and their
arrangement, and some related to the geofluid proper-ties. Generally higher
efficiency is associated with plants utilizing geofluids having high exergy
such as dry steam systems. The low-est efficiency plants are those using
geofluids with the lowest temperatures and specific exergies. The latter plants,
typically of the binary type, are limited by the small temperature difference
◦ Since geothermal plants reject more waste heat per unit of power
between the hot geofluid, typically 100–150 C, and the tempera-ture of the
◦
surroundings, typically 10–30 C, to which waste heat must be rejected.
Multi-stage energy conversion systems such as double- and triple-flash steam
or dual-pressure binary plants are capable of high utilization efficiency
because they minimize the loss of geofluid and working fluid exergy in the
various plant processes.
It is somewhat surprising that the conversion efficiency of geothermal
power plants in the aggregate has not improved as much as one might expect
over a century of development; Fig. 27 shows that there is barely an upward
trend. Comparing geother-mal plant evolution to that of fossil-fueled plants,
one sees very large efficiency gains made in fossil-fueled central stations over
roughly the same time period. In the early days of coal- and oil-fired central
power stations, efficiencies in the range of 15–20% were common, but as
advances in metallurgy allowed higher and higher steam temperatures and
pressures in the 1950s, these reached 35–40%. Today’s combined cycle gas
turbine–steam turbine plants can achieve efficiencies of 55–60%. Thus, the
efficiency of fossil plants has increased by a factor of three to four since the
first modern power plants came into existence.
However, the improvement for geothermal plants becomes more evident
when one looks only at dry steam plants which have the longest history. Fig.
28 shows that dry steam plants have, on average, raised their utilization
efficiency by a factor of 2.2 between 1913 and 2000, i.e., over an 87-year
period. These plants evolved from ones at Larderello with rudimentary
technology using steam of moderate temperature and very low pressure to
today’s plants with advanced technology, working with steam having higher
tem-peratures and pressures. Since the resource conditions for these plants are
either saturated or slightly superheated steam, the spe-cific exergy is confined
to a relatively narrow range from roughly 700 to 850 kJ/kg. In comparison,
binary and flash-steam plants operate over a wide range of geofluid exergy
from about 20 to 475 kJ/kg.
Fig. 28. Evolution of performance for dry steam plants from 1913 to 2000.
These performance gains have been achieved by using more advanced
components, e.g., more refined turbine blade designs. Geothermal plants have
demonstrated net efficiencies in the 25–55% range, with some designs
exceeding 60%. This is a conse-quence of the fact that natural geothermal
resources occur over a limited range of temperatures and these are well below
the metallurgical limit for today’s materials. Furthermore, the highest
temperature geothermal fluids normally are burdened with chal-lenging
chemical properties that create technical problems and drive up plant costs.
generated than conventional thermal power plants, the effect of ambient
temperature on performance is as critical as the manner in which the waste
heat is removed from the plant. The highest efficiency point in Figs. 26–28 is
the SMUDGEO#1 plant with an unconventional (for geothermal plants) dual-
pressure con-denser designed to achieve excellent performance using much
less geosteam flow than other plants of similar power ratings at The Geysers.
The prevailing economic conditions at the time SMUD-GEO#1 was on the
drawing board drove the plant to a very efficient design. Besides
thermodynamics, economics and contractual con-siderations strongly
influence the optimum plant design.
Higher efficiencies could be achieved by combining geother-mal resources
with other energy sources to reach higher process and cycle temperatures.
Hybrid fossil-geothermal plants have been studied, but they result in larger
emissions of greenhouse gases and particulates, thus compromising the
renewable and sustain-able nature of pure geothermal plants. Hybrid
geothermal plants using other renewable energy resources, such as solar and
biomass (Thain and DiPippo, 2015), would achieve synergy without com-
promising the environmental benefits and sustainability of such renewable
resources of energy.
Acknowledgements
Roberto Parri (Head of Geothermal Plant Operations, ENEL Green Power)
and Raffaele Cataldi (Honorary President, Italian Geothermal Union)
generously shared their unpublished papers and recollections on the early
plants in Italy. Discussions with these gentlemen greatly enhanced the
author’s knowledge of Ital-ian technical achievements in
geothermal power. Michael Kraml (GeoThermal Engineering
GmbH (GeoT)) offered helpful references on the Kiabukwa
plant. Marcelo Lippmann (Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory) applied his editing skills to improve the flow of
the text. Ms. Paige Gibbs (Reference Librarian, University of
 R. DiPippo / Geothermics 53 (2015) 291–307
Massachusetts Dartmouth) obtained for the author several journal articles
from the earliest days of geothermal power generation.
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