Geothermal News brings you the latest developments in this exciting field.

Geothermal power plants make use of energy stored as heat in the earth. The geothermal energy originates from the formation of the earth, created by the radioactive decay of minerals. This a bit different to ground source heat pumps which often use solar energy absorbed at the surface.

The Earth’s heat has been used for space heating and bathing since ancient roman times, but today we are hearing more about using this resource to generate electricity. It was estimated in 2007, that about 10 GW of geothermal electric capacity was installed globally. This represents a tiny amount (0.3%) of global electricity production.

A larger amount of energy, about 28 GW, is produced from direct geothermal heating used in district heating, space heating, spas, industrial processes, desalination and agricultural applications.