Dan Jørgensen, the Commissioner-Designate for Energy and Housing, committed to European strategy for geothermal at his confirmation hearing in the European Parliament yesterday, November 5th, 2024. He stressed that “Unfortunately that is an untapped resource” and that it can “definitely play a bigger role” in the heating of buildings. He agreed with the European Parliament’s resolution, which was adopted on 18th January 2024 (2023/2111(INI))1 with near unanimous support, that access to subsurface data; planning; financing; and new business models that address higher upfront costs but maximise very low operational costs over long lifetimes would be covered. Earlier, Krzysztof Bolesta, Deputy Minister of Climate and Environment for Poland, stated “Geothermal energy is one of these essential resources in achieving decarbonisation” at the Euroheat & Power Summit in Brussels. Philippe Dumas, Secretary General for the European Geothermal Energy Council (EGEC) stated “Geothermal finally became a key pillar of Europe’s energy transition” whilst Sanjeev Kumar, Head of Policy, added, “Today marks the dawn of the geothermal decade”. Geothermal energy provides baseload electricity, heating and cooling; the cheapest and least land-intensive means of energy storage; as well as the most sustainable means of lithium and mineral extraction. At present, geothermal provides less than 2% of the EU’s final electricity, heating and cooling energy supplies. With a robust policy framework, EGEC’s modelling confirms that geothermal can meet at least 75% of the EU’s heating and cooling demand by 2040, 15% of electricity supplies and 10% of lithium and other minerals in a cost-effective means. Download the Press Release.
