Tropical Pacific

The Western and Eastern Tropical Pacific areas are environmentally sensitive areas with great biodiversity. Clean, renewable energy in this area would help preserve the environment and help deliver UN SDG’s for the people living in these areas. Unfortunately, two of the most common Renewables have intermittency limitations here – Solar PV (due to pervasive cloud cover) and Wind Turbines (due to low winds near the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ)). Fortunately Geothermal Energy is possible in some of these areas.

Associated with tectonic plate boundaries (illustration below), Subduction Zone, Divergent Zone, and Hot Spot locations have demonstrated significant heat flow to enable Geothermal developments. Some countries including Indonesia and Philippines have already scaled their high enthalpy geothermal developments. The most common development solution has been Multiple Well Open Systems.

With modern drilling and power generation technologies, there are many more potential low and medium enthalpy locations able to be developed in these areas.