Speaker
Dr
Luca ANGELINO
(Head of Policy and Regulation, European Geothermal Energy Council)
Description
The first part of this presentation provides an overview of the deep and shallow geothermal market development and the prospective for the next decades.
The financial crisis has slowed down some of the development in geothermal electricity, and it is apparently a difficult time to attract the necessary investment. However, the investigation in possible projects is going on in more countries than ever. Eight new power plants became operational in 2013, increasing the installed capacity in Europe to 1848.96 MWe, producing some 11.7TWh of electric power in 2012. According to the GEOELEC resource assessment the European geothermal power economic potential is 174 TWh in 2030 and grows to more than 4000 TWh in 2050.
Regarding district heating, this is the geothermal sector with the most dynamic development and the most interesting perspective in the coming years. Eight new systems have been installed in five European countries in 2013, increasing installed capacity to ca. 4309 MWth, with 12884 GWh th/year used for heating. Furthermore, the GeoDH project has estimated that over 25% of the EU population lives in areas suitable to geothermal district heating.
However, comparing the actual geothermal production with the projections in the National Renewable Energy Action Plans, it is easy to note how we are lagging behind the expected trajectory. Against this background support schemes remain a crucial tool of public policy for geothermal to compensate for market failures and to allow the technology to progress along its learning curve. The second part will therefore look at the support schemes in place across Europe for both geothermal electricity and heating and cooling. The situation in this field is rapidly evolving in particular following the nnewly adopted EU guidelines on public support for renewable energy projects.
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![L. ANGELINO][3]
[3]: https://indico.cern.ch/event/263557/picture/36.jpg
Author
Dr
Luca ANGELINO
(Head of Policy and Regulation, European Geothermal Energy Council)