Hungary's Largest Geothermal Plant Now Fully Operational

A new geothermal district heating plant in the town of Szentlőrinc in Southwest Hungary is now fully operational. The plant produces 3.1 MW of thermal energy, providing heating and hot water for some 900 homes in Szentlőrinc, and has excess capacity for further expansion. The geothermal plant replaces the town's existing natural-gas powered district heating system with environmentally-friendly and sustainable geothermal energy.

Following the drilling of a successful 1,820 meter deep production well in September 2009, and later another effective well for reinjection, Mannvit commenced on an EPCM project, for the project owner Szentlörinci Geotermia Zrt. (affiliated company of PannErgy Plc.), to deliver the fully functioning geothermal heating plant in the town of Szentlörinc. The functional completion and start-up of the geothermal heating plant was completed on December 29th, 2011. The entire project cost 1,3 billion HUF and is the largest geothermal development enterprise to date in Hungary. The heating system is intended to be further developed to heat local schools and municipality buildings, while the return water can be used to heat green houses.

PannErgy Plc and the Icelandic engineering firm Mannvit have been working in collaboration for over four years through Mannvit's Budapest office. Mannvit, a leader in exploring and utilizing geothermal resources, offered its decades-long scientific and technological expertise in geothermal energy for the Szentlőrinc project from start to finish. The first phase tasks conducted by Mannvit included: geological and geophysical research, licencing, geothermal reservoir and environmental modeling, well siting and well design, drilling supervision and testing. The second phase Mannvit completed under an EPCM contract.