The report highlights the potential for geothermal to offer significant advancements in universally available, low-carbon, and reliable base-load power.
It describes how, via a combination of policies to encourage development of geothermal resources and new technologies, geothermal energy could make up 3.5% of global electricity production and 3.9% of energy for heat by 2050.
14 June 2011: The International Energy Agency (IEA) has published the “Technology Roadmap – Geothermal Heat and Power” as part of its Technology Roadmap series covering 19 supply and demand side energy technologies.
The aim of the Roadmap is to enable quick momentum gains in geothermal heat and power technology development to confront global sustainability and energy security challenges. It addresses technical, legal, policy, economic and organizational aspects of advancing development of these technologies.
The report highlights the potential for geothermal to offer significant advancements in universally available, low-carbon, and reliable base-load power. It describes how, via a combination of policies to encourage development of geothermal resources and new technologies, geothermal energy could make up 3.5% of global electricity production and 3.9% of energy for heat by 2050, up from today’s 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively.
To accomplish this, the report emphasizes the need to encourage its production by removing current regulatory barriers, developing international geothermal resource and technology databases, and by introducing differentiated economic incentive schemes such as feed-in tariffs to further the development of geothermal technologies not yet commercially viable.
The report notes that one of the main obstacles hindering the development of geothermal is that many countries that lack specific laws for geothermal resources, which are currently covered by mining laws that were not conceived with renewable energy production in mind. In addition to regulatory reform, the report calls for substantially increased research and development funding, as well as the creation of at least 50 additional pilot plants over the next ten years. [IEA Press Release] [Publication: Technology Roadmap – Geothermal Heat and Power]