The recently released report, “The Geothermal Report: Edition 5 2009,” highlights developments in the geothermal market, and pinpoints regions that are developing geothermal capacity. Developments have been quite substantial in the last year, and these are outlined, including company changes.
Geothermal energy can be harvested in two ways, either via direct use of hot water or steam from low-enthalpy deposits for space heating, or by indirect use which transforms the energy in high and medium enthalpy deposits into electricity in geothermal power generation plants. A third method of harvesting is the increasingly important sub-category of direct use, the ground source heat pump (GSHP). GSHPs are one of the fastest growing applications of renewable energy in the world, and the fastest growing forms of geothermal energy, with annual increases of well over 10 percent in about 30 countries over the past 10 years. It is a small but fast-growing proportion of the space-heating market. The report predicts that it will make fast progress.
The geothermal market is expanding, although it has not escaped the effects of the financial crisis in the short term. Big-ticket investment in renewable energy has been hit by the 2008/9 global recession. Working off a low base, it might be argued that geothermal investment has not taken the same type of knock as, for example, wind power. However, the long list of projects at early stages in the United States, included in this report, suggests that the process of installing geothermal resource has at least slowed.
The report “The Geothermal Report: Edition 5 2009” is available for purchase from Report Buyer. Visit http://www.reportbuyer.com/energy_utilities/alternative_ for more information.
