Flow control for geothermal energy

Reliable valves for geothermal energy production

Scaling and media solids The valves applied to control the steamy process flow coming from the boreholes drilled to the ground will come into contact with loosened soil from the ground that can contain silica, sand and other abrasives, which can cause numerous valve challenges including erosion and clogging. Valves in this application need to overcome the presence of solids while still being able to accurate control capabilities.

After steam comes out of the ground valves become critical to the safe and efficient operation of the turbines. In this case extreme measures must be taken to protect the turbine, pumps and people working in the area. Poor valve selection or maintenance could result in damages to turbine blades, superheater and reheater tubes or cause overheating in the pump.

Knowing geothermal applications Given the breadth and sophistication of our Neles™ and Jamesbury™ product offering, we can be a single-source supplier of valve and automation technology to geothermal plants including control and on-off valves of the butterfly, globe, segment and ball valves ranging from 1’’ to 88’’. Using Valmet as the sole supplier of flow control technologies helps our customers to reduce spare parts inventory and maintenance costs while also mitigating the stress of procurement and commissioning.

From wellhead to reinjection, Neles™ and Jamesbury™ control and automated on-off valves are widely used in both flash-powered and binary-operated geothermal plants. On the ORC turbine side, soft-seated Jamesbury Wafer-Sphere™ valves and Neles R-series segment valves are commonly applied. Equipped with Neles pneumatic actuators and Neles™ NDX™ the turbine is optimally and reliably controlled.

For heavy silica scaling service, such as Emergency Dump Valves (ED) or Level Control Valves (LCV), Neles™ Finetrol™ valves are a proven choice. Especially for large capacities, our pure metal-to-metal seated triple-eccentric butterfly valve series, Neles™ Neldisc™, has been characterized by exceptionally low maintenance intervals for decades.

We have considerable experience helping customers to size and select the right valves and actuation for geothermal service. The Nelprof™ valve selection software is also available to help engineers with valve sizing and calculating calculate flow characteristics. Once in service, asset management software and our ValvesNow helps to carry out predictive maintenance with live monitoring of the valve performance.

High performance and control accuracy We offer accumulated knowledge gained through experience from several geothermal power plants from Iceland to Turkey, Kenya to New Zealand, and from Indonesia and the Philippines to Latin America, the United States, and several European countries. Reliable valve solutions featuring high control performance and control accuracy play a significant role in extracting geothermal energy from the heat of the Earth.