26 JUNE 2023 WorldWide Drilling Resource® New Geothermal Factory from the Ground Up Adapted from Information by Kensa Group The Kensa Group celebrated the official opening of its new modern office and large production facility, located at Mount Wellington Mine in Truro, Cornwall, United Kingdom. The factory has the capacity to manufacture 30,000 ground source heat pumps each year, which will help support the UK’s transition to clean energy and meet with demand for this low-carbon, lowcost heating technology. Kensa’s own heat pumps provide the factory and offices with underfloor heating, hot water, and cooling by exchanging heat with water from the flooded mine shaft on the historic site. Mount Wellington Mine was the last deep tin mine to be built in the world - and the most advanced in the 1970s. The granite rocks are enriched in natural radioactive isotopes, including those of uranium. The energy from the decay of these radiogenic elements is dissipated as heat, which is why Cornwall was the epicenter of exploration as a source of geothermal energy. After closing its doors on the mining operation in 1991, the site was subsequently acquired by Richard Freeborn of Mount Wellington Mine Ltd in 2007. He was granted planning consent to create the UK’s first privately funded renewable energy business park, spearheaded by the relocation of Kensa Heat Pumps in 2007, which was cofounded by Richard Freeborn and fellow engineer Guy Cashmore in 1999. Practicing what he preached, Richard chose to use a Kensa ground source heat pump to heat the Kensa manufacturing facility, and with the wealth of water available in the mine shafts below, a sustainable new lease of purpose was granted to the disused mine workings. Recently, Kensa also secured new engineering talent, allowing it to push the boundaries of product development within the heat pump industry. Innovations include a new commercial range capable of high heat loads and a highly flexible storage heat pump that can be run when electricity is at its cheapest and the heat stored for use later when it is needed. After pioneering the use of networked heat pumps on shared ground loop arrays to efficiently and cost-effectively allow multiple-occupancy dwellings, such as tower blocks and clusters of neighboring homes, to switch to ground source heat pumps, Kensa is now focusing on expanding the scale of this renewable infrastructure to heat whole streets and entire communities. It is estimated, over 50,000 installers will be needed by 2030 to deploy one million heat pumps. Supporting UK manufacturing could create 15,000 jobs, and installing networked heat pumps would create an additional 25,000 jobs in infrastructure provision, such as drilling boreholes. GEO
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