Germany’s government on Wednesday endorsed a bill proposing to fast-track the development of geothermal energy for heating as it looks to reduce emissions from buildings.
The bill includes measures to accelerate the process for approving geothermal energy projects such as geothermal plants, district heating pipelines, heat pumps, and thermal storage.
Such projects would be considered of “overriding public interest”, on par with solar and wind power projects.
The draft law also eases some restrictions on geothermal exploration in Germany.
To become law, the bill now must be approved by the Parliament.
Geothermal energy could help meet 25% of Germany’s heat demand, NGO Deutsche Umwelthilfe said in a research paper last year. Geothermal could provide around 300 TWh/year, or 72 GW, to the heating sector by 2040, which would be about 25% of today’s total heating demand in Germany, according to the NGO.
Based on Deutsche Umwelthilfe’s experience with deep geothermal projects, the NGO has estimated that the levelized cost of heat (LCOH) for geothermal in Germany is competitive with other technologies.
Bundesverband Geothermie (BVG), the German Geothermal Association, earlier this year published a map of the geothermal projects in the country, which showed that there are 42 geothermal plants in operation and 16 others under construction. The number of planning permits has jumped in recent years, according to the association.
Apart from geothermal energy, Germany is looking to boost its solar and wind power generation sectors with ambitious goals and legislative changes to ease and streamline the permitting processes.
Despite the push, Germany is still off track to reach the official targets in onshore and offshore wind. Onshore wind power installations have jumped, but Germany still has a gap between the rate of capacity expansion and the legally mandated goals in the Renewable Energy Sources Act, the so-called EEG.
Germany has a target to install 10 GW of wind power capacity every year to have renewables account for 80% of its electricity generation in 2030.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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