Promoting renewable energies - RETS Project

Geothermal Energy in
Hódmezővásárhely (Hungary)
Hungary has a very long tradition of using geo-thermal
energy largely for balneological use. However in the late
1950s thermal waters started to be used for district
heating and green house heating in the Szentes area.
utility system is an insulated pipeline network that
connects four housing projects of Hódmezővásárhely
with individual district heating systems
This is a system for domestic hot water supply. It
supplies DHW for residential and public consumers
equivalent to 3,000 flats, and 9 public institutions
(hospital, bath etc.).
The geothermal public utility system
The construction of the geothermal public utility system
was started in 1994 in a joint investment of the Financial
Trust and Service Provider Co. of Hódmezővásárhely
and a professional investor, and under the leadership of
Geohód Kft. set up by the two parties in 1993.
The project had two objectives. On the one hand, to
replace the domestic hot water produced from cold
drinking water with natural gas in the local district heating
plants by utilizing the thermal water of 43-50°C
extractable from a depth of 1000-1 300 metres. On the
other hand, to replace the natural gas through the
utilisation of the thermal water of 80°C extractable
from a depth of 2000 metres (not requiring special
treatment), and to reinject the unusable, cold fluid into
layers close to the extraction layers.
Accordingly, the investment consisted of two separate
parts: a system for DHW, and a heating system. The
project was realised in more phases, the DHW-well of
Hódtó in 1994, the well for heating in 1996, the
reinjection well No. I and the other DHW-well on
Oldalkosár street - thus the complete first part of the
geothermal public utility system – in 1998. The public
Key statistics
Prime cost of DHW approx. 70 – 80 HUF/m 3 (with
traditional technology approx. 500 – 600
HUF/m 3 );
Quantity of produced heating thermal water
approx. 580,000 m3/year, quantity of reinjected
water approx. 400,000 m3/year;
Quantity of heat for thermal heating approx.
65 000 GJ/year;
Prime costs for production of thermal energy for
heating (with reinjection) approx. 650 – 750
HUF/GJ (with traditional, natural gas technology
currently approx. 2,800 – 3,000 HUF/GJ);
Quantity of natural gas replaced by heating and
thermal DHW approx. 2,650 thousand m 3 /year;
The simplified payback period of the project is
approx. 6.5 - 7.5 years;
80% of the primary heat demand of the town’s
district heating system equivalent of 3,000 flats is
supplied from local geothermal energy.
RETS Compendium – © 2012 RETS Consortium
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