Milestone for the decarbonization of heating: The European Parliament calls for a strategy to unlock geothermal energy’s full potential

An overwhelming majority (531 vs 2) of Members of the European Parliament voted in favour of the report prepared by the Committee for Industry, Research and Energy, which calls on the European Commission to present an EU geothermal strategy with concrete actions to accelerate its deployment.

The report explicitly “stresses that the greatest potential of geothermal energy use in the EU lies in district heating and cooling systems and networks of shallow geothermal installations”.

The report “underlines the need to modernize existing heating and cooling networks and build new ones using the potential of geothermal energy”.

Equally important, the report focuses on many key measures to secure a faster and wider deployment for geothermal district heating:

• Easier access to subsurface data
• Faster permitting rules
• Facilitated access to urban plots suitable for geothermal projects
• Etc.

“Geothermal district heating can make a substantial contribution to achieving EU key strategic objectives: Reaching climate targets, bolstering the EU’s open strategic autonomy and eliminating fossil-fuel dependencies on unreliable third countries,” Asbjørn Haugstrup adds.

Innargi is currently building EU’s largest geothermal plant for district heating in Aarhus, Denmark with a capacity of 110 megawatts. It will supply about 20% of the city with renewable and emission-free heat. The company also has projects under development in Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Denmark.

Already last year, a group of leading Members of the European Parliament from different parties expressed their support for geothermal heating and called it the next renewable opportunity. Today’s vote highlights again that the decarbonization of heating by means of district heating and geothermal energy should be high on the agenda of the next European Parliament and European Commission.

Innargi is ready to share its expertise and best practices with policymakers.

About Innargi
Innargi specializes in financing, developing, building, and operating larger-scale geothermal heating plants for district heating companies.

With the expert knowledge of an experienced team of geologists, reservoir, energy plant, and drilling engineers as well as specialists with many years of experience in the district heating industry, Innargi has the necessary combination of know-how to be able to exploit the potential of geothermal energy in order to decarbonise heat supply.

About geothermal
Geothermal energy is the heat energy that comes from the earth’s interior. In depths of one to three kilometers, geothermal water ranging from 30-80 degrees Celsius exists in many areas. This water can be pumped to the surface through deep boreholes, transferring the heat to the district heating network’s water in a closed circuit. Once the heat is transferred, the geothermal water is pumped back underground. Depending on the underground temperature, it may be necessary to use large heat pumps to elevate the temperature to the required level for the district heating network.

For further information please contact:

• Chief External Relations Officer Asbjørn Haugstrup – +45 26 72 94 21
• Head of EU Affairs Malte Nyenhuis – +32 472 25 26 49