Promote Geothermal District Heating Systems in Europe

Solutions developed

GEODH aims to remove administrative and financial barriers and to work alongside decision makers to facilitate the adoption of the right framework.The GEO-DH project focus on developing geothermal district heating systems in Eastern and Central Europe (BG, CZ, HU, PL, RO, SI) and in other EU countries with ambitious 2020 target (NL, DE, IT, FR) or with geothermal DH projects under development (DK, UK, IE).Recommendations (administrative, legal, financial and managerial) will be drafted to address the identified barriers and to contribute accelerating the market penetration of this technology. The sharing of best practice on technologies and on the implementation and delivery mechanisms will be achieved through the celebration of targeted workshops within regions and local authorities within 14 target countries.

Main results

- Acceleration of approval procedures for geothermal DH by simplifying regulations of geothermal DH. In order to simplify these procedures, GeoDH project has proposed a set of recommendations for a favourable regulatory framework which have been presented to over 60 public authorities in 14 countries.
- Attract more financing for geothermal DH systems . Innovative financial solutions have been proposed to finance Geothermal DH projects which are capital intensive. The project has elaborated a maual for support schemes, a guide on business models for geothermal DH and a guide on project management in order to attract more investments to the sector.
- A total of 16 new plants (circa 16 MWth) have come to operation since the project started and 9 projects are under development.
- Increased awareness of regional and local decision-makers on deep geothermal potential and its advantages. Know-how has been achieved via the elaboration of best practices and by training national and local authorities (more than 500 trainees) . An online GIS viewer showing the potential of geothermal district heating in 14 EU MS