Little-known Mid West Geothermal Power (MWGP) claims the Kingia Sandstone reservoir, which has proved a massive gas resource for Strike Energy, could also be utilised as a geothermal power source. 

The company said it believed it could generate as much as 150 megawatts of renewable, low emissions, electricity to the grid by exploiting the heat from the Sandstone target.  

MWGP used data obtained from Strike Energy's recent West Erregulla drilling campaigns and Mitsui's Waitsia project as the basis for this assumption. 

The Kingia Sandstone is located more than 3.5km below surface within MWGP's proposed permit, where formation temperatures are around 200 degrees Celsius.

MWGP plan to bring hot water present in the rock formation to surface and extract heat to produce power. Water will then be pumped back down to the reservoir to naturally reheat, allowing multiple uses of the same resource. 

MWGP submitted its application for the exploration license to the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety Wednesday. 

The company is working with a consultant called Hot Dry Rocks to determine the extent of the geothermal resource. 

As part of the exploration and assessment program the two companies have requested to undertake a Surface Heat Flow Survey using a ‘heat needle' which will measure soil thermal properties and ground temperatures to identify conductive heat flows at the earth's surface. 

The survey will take place close to the Dongara-6, Lockyer-1, and Mt Adams-1, wellsites. 

Further plans on the power generation facility have not been revealed. MWGP is led by Richard Beresford, who formerly headed up Woodside's green energy subsidiary Metasource. 

This is not the first time Beresford has attempted to get a geothermal project off the ground in the Midwest region of the state. Seven years ago he created a joint venture between Green Rock Energy and New World Energy to develop such a project. It never came to fruition.