Geothermal: accelerated short term growth

The development of new technologies and environmental reasons favour the development of this sector, whose installed capacity is expected to grow by 80% within 2015

One century after it was created, geothermal energy is still in the early phases of its potential development, in terms of quantity and at a global level.  Only a limited number of leading players develop its technology and production, while most producers mainly act on the local market.  

Nevertheless, this sector is undergoing a powerful growth and new players will enter the market in the future, due both to the development of new technologies and the need to reduce carbon emissions.   

According to a recent report by Global Industry Analysts (GIA), over the next five years the geothermal sector will increase by over 80%, from the approximately 10,000 MW currently installed to about 18,400 MW expected by 2015.

The report emphasizes that this growth will be supported by the new regulatory trends which are developing in several countries. The latter will assist the growth of this sector not only for electricity generation, but also –maybe especially - for space heating.

The United States, the Philippines, Mexico, Indonesia and Italy are presently world leaders in this sector, producing over 75% of the total geothermal power.
Untapped resources still have a huge potential, which can be estimated in approximately 70,000 MW worldwide, only for electricity generation. Most of it is found along the so-called Pacific’s Ring of Fire, but also regions like Oceania and the Horn of Africa offer remarkable high temperature geothermal resources, while all continents include wide areas whose medium-and-low-temperature resources are increasingly significant.

(July 2010)