Future prospects for geothermal energy in Germany

02.02.2022 | Market Development | Katja Finkenzeller

© Pixabay: Distelapparath, RoDobby, Open ClipArt

Prof. Rolf Bracke from Fraunhofer IEG presented a master plan for the heat transition in Germany to an audience of around 300 people today. The focus was on the question of what role geothermal energy can play in the German energy system in the future.

To this day, oil and gas still play a major role in the energy generation market and lead to high CO ₂ emissions. The current governing coalition makes it clear that domestic energy sources should be made usable in order to promote CO ₂ savings and to position oneself geopolitically more independently. The aim is to obtain half of the municipal heat from climate-neutral sources by 2030. Deep geothermal energy can make a decisive contribution here. It is weather-independent, climate-neutral and occupies little space in settlements.

The roadmap by researchers from Fraunhofer Energy Research and the Helmholtz Association shows how this can be done. It contains concrete steps and recommendations for action for municipal heat supply, for industrial processes, as well as for technological innovation processes and social acceptance.

At the moment, 56 percent of the final energy requirement is required for the heat supply in Germany. In order to decarbonize this enormous share in the next two decades, it will take both a municipal and an industrial heat transition. At the moment, only 15 percent of this is generated from renewable sources. Geothermal energy can play a central role in the transformation process. It is independent of the season and time of day, has base load capability and can also be set up in cramped inner-city conditions due to the small space requirement.

In the study, the researchers identified a potential of 300 terawatt hours for hydrothermal geothermal energy in Germany. With this amount of energy, hydrothermal geothermal energy can provide 170 terawatt hours for district heating and 130 terawatt hours for industry. In 2020, a total of 42 systems nationwide delivered 359 megawatts of installed thermal output and 45 megawatts of electrical output.

In order to install the around 70 gigawatts of capacity required for this, public households and private companies will have to invest EUR 2.0 to 2.5 billion per gigawatt of installed capacity over the next 10 years. From the researchers' point of view, this makes it possible to achieve competitive heat production costs of less than 30 euros per megawatt hour.

Geothermal energy has now reached a point where it is ready for use and competitive with fossil fuels, explained Prof. Ingo Sass from the GFZ. All speakers emphasized that for long-term anchoring of geothermal energy in the population, the acceptance of the technology must be further promoted.