This will enable production testing, leading to the first formal proving of geothermal reserves, and thus proving the concept and completing Stage 1 of the company’s plans, Geodynamics said.

The company said this morning that once the power plant was built, it planned to ramp up production to over 500MW by 2015, which would be comparable in annual energy output to the Snowy Mountain Scheme.

“This acceleration is a result of a review of [the] resource position and recognition that our nation’s geothermal resources offer the greatest potential for a rapid response to Australia’s demand for zero-emission power,” Geodynamics said.

“The Cooper Basin is a province of national and indeed international significance with potential to generate very large amounts of zero emission power for hundreds of years. Project studies, including long-term production modelling, have shown that Geodynamics’ resources alone have the potential to support a generating capacity of over 10,000MW.”

Geodynamics’ tenements in this area total more than 2500 square kilometres.

The company claims that its geothermal exploration licences, GELs 97, 98 and 99, have been shown to contain over 390,000 petajoules of high-grade thermal energy.

“The size of the resource is clear,” the company said. “The large bodies of granite have been clearly delineated and proven to exist through drilling.

“The quality and potential of the resource is proven with temperatures up to 250-300C.

“The world’s largest enhanced underground heat exchanger has been developed and initial flow tests have produced the first hot fluids to the surface.”