The Deep Earth Energy Production Company (DEEP) has achieved a significant milestone in its testing and development of geothermal power resources in southeast Saskatchewan and will begin work this year on Canada’s first geothermal plant.

“We have been able to announce that the project is a go and that we now have a strategy in place to commence construction this year,” said Kirsten Marcia, founder and CEO of DEEP, headquartered in Saskatoon.

“The important thing about geothermal is that it’s the only renewable that provides baseload power. It’s always on, and you don’t need to back it up with something,” Marcia explained. “Wind and solar are only producing power about a third of the time, so you need to back them up with natural gas, typically.”

Marcia founded DEEP in 2010 in Saskatoon. She is a geologist who has worked her entire career in Saskatchewan. She worked in oil and gas as a wellsite geologist, with gold and base metals in northern Sask, and in diamond exploration.

“For oil and gas exploratory drilling, I mean, it was well known that this hot, deep aquifer existed. We were able to see all of that in public drilling records, but it had been ignored because it didn’t have any hydrocarbons in it,” Marcia said.

“It was a unique opportunity to redeploy some of (Saskatchewan’s) high-level oil and gas expertise onto a clean energy project.”

Geothermal power works because the core of the planet is hot — really hot. The deeper the well, the hotter the temperature.

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