Tiny town in Australia to get free electricity for decades

A geothermal power plant has pledged to provide free electricity to a small town in South Australia for the coming fifty years. The small town, Innamincka, presently depends on diesel generators to provide electricity which costs the twelve permanent inhabitants up to two hundred thousand dollars annually.

Geodynamics, a renewable power firm will provide the inhabitants of Innamincka with electricity at no cost from its trial ‘hot rocks’ power plant as long as the plant exists which it is estimated will be up to 2058.

After being abandoned in the early 1950s, there was resettlement in Innamincka again in the late 1960s and now the tiny historic town possesses a hotel, a store and accommodation facilities. The town has been a favourite stop for tourists on their way to other places but tourist levels have been on a downward trend of late.

A resident of the town who has been there for the last eighteen years, John Osborne, disclosed that energy costs comprised the biggest portion of overheads for inhabitants of the town. He added that they were spending nine thousand pounds annually just to buy diesel for the generators saying that most of the electricity was for powering the refrigerators and air conditioners since in the summer months the temperatures sometimes reached 50⁰C.

John Osborne however admitted that even though the project would potentially be saving them nine thousand dollars annually, the inhabitants wouldn’t be disposing of their diesel generators since the project was a trial.

The technology being tested involves water being pumped deep into the ground to create an artificial reservoir just above the heat producing granite rocks which heat the water producing steam which is then used to rotate a turbine which produces electricity.

www.geodynamics.com.au