Britain’s first continuous geothermal power plant has begun commercial operation in Cornwall, supplying baseload electricity to the grid for 24/7 generation rather than heat-only or pilot‑scale output. The project uses deep geothermal wells drilled several kilometres into hot granite, circulating water through a closed-loop system to drive a surface power plant via binary-cycle technology. For civil and geotechnical engineers, the scheme tests high‑temperature casing design, long‑term borehole stability in fractured rock, and integration of geothermal infrastructure with existing grid and planning frameworks in the UK.

Numerical modelling of deep underground excavations using RS2 and the Confinement-Dependent Visco-Plastic Model (CVBM) is used to capture spalling in jointed rock masses where confinement drops and tangential stresses concentrate around excavation boundaries. The approach contrasts brittle spalling in massive, low-porosity rock with more ductile behaviour in highly jointed rock, explicitly representing joint orientation, spacing, and strength. For design, this enables more realistic prediction of depth of failure, damage zones, and support demand around tunnels and caverns at high stress ratios.

GeoStruxer’s digital twin of a 12,000‑square‑metre grain warehouse in Jazan, Saudi Arabia, enabled a redesign of the original slab‑on‑grade foundation to a piled solution that cut pile numbers by 70% and CO₂ emissions by 44%. Using Bentley’s PLAXIS 3D and Leapfrog, the team integrated geotechnical models with structural analysis to optimise pile length, spacing, and layout while maintaining bearing capacity and settlement criteria. The approach reduced concrete and steel quantities, shortened construction time, and provided a reusable geotechnical model for future port developments.