I don't really know what this means but it sounds interesting -
Geothermal energy NZ – the good news and the bad news
Gary Mersham, PhDClick here to view Gary Mersham, PhD’S profile
Gary Mersham, PhD
Advisor at Verdure, Futurize.io
Published Mar 13, 2022
New Zealand has had a head start in Geothermal energy. The original Wairakei plant in New Zealand, the first large-scale plant in the world, has been operating for over 60 years.
Experimental schemes have been developed in several parts of the World including Europe and Australia. Flow rates achieved and the cost of drilling to such depths has meant that the economics of such schemes are unfavourable here and MBIE commissioned research from 2020 concludes that very unlikely that such projects would become economically feasible in New Zealand.
But they say that there is potential to take up existing technology which has not been widely used New Zealand, but like all energy technologies it will be determined by cost and regulatory environment.
For example, a high carbon tax would make carbon capture and sequestration/storage feasible, but it would disadvantage geothermal plants with higher emission intensities) relative to other renewables such as wind, which have no operational Greenhouse Gas emissions.
New Zealand taking a leading role in controlling deposition of silica and other deleterious minerals in the waste stream, This is the Geo40 process, which produces a commercial silica product currently being trialled in NZ .
So, while the potential for projects outside the known high temperature areas in New Zealand is very limited, but the researchers argue that there is potential for:
*new technology to increase existing geothermal generation capacity
*geothermal generation to be extended to areas outside the existing Rotorua-Taupōand Ngāwhā areas.
*geothermal to generate in a load-following manner, to compensate for intermittency of other electricity sources.