In full growth: this is how the latest report of the European Geothermal Energy Council highlights the trend of this type of renewable energy.
According to this comprehensive analysis, geothermal energy is a growing industry that today heats more than 400 cities (about 20 million inhabitants) and provides electricity to 11 million consumers in Europe.
These are figures that point to the good moment that the sector is experiencing and which is expected to continue with growth prospectsaccording to what is stated in the same report.
An alternative to fossil fuels
As for the present, the x-ray offered by the 2023 EGEC Geothermal Market shows that Geothermal energy maintains its trend in traditional marketswhich, until now, have consisted of their application in buildings, greenhouses or districts.
This is in part thanks to the geothermal heat pumpswhose facilities have maintained a growth rate of 12%. Last year, in addition, the record sales figure of 155,000 units was reached, of which half were sold in northern European countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden.
2023 was also the period in which they joined 50 new geothermal power plants to the 143 that already existed and that produced about 20 TWh/year.
In the case of cities, urban air conditioning networks (DH) have been somewhat diminished due to delays caused by permitting and other issues, such as supply chain disruptions or the choice of fossil fuels. Despite this, the report indicates that new installations continue to grow, with 8 projects in Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, Romania and Slovakia.
In other more disruptive markets, geothermal energy has expanded thanks to new technologies and totally innovative applications, such as new generation intelligent heat networks (the 5th).
Furthermore, the use of innovative UTES technologywhich allows heat to be stored underground to be used in the future, is also growing so that geothermal energy is an increasingly stable and reliable energy resource.
With all of the above, it is clear that the geothermal potential is very interestingespecially to choose alternatives to fossil fuels and thus meet the decarbonization objective that international society is considering for the coming years.