In November 2018, the new European project GEOENVI has kicked-off its work with the objective to assess environmental risks and impacts of deep geothermal energy. The project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and coordinated by EGEC, has the objective to make sure that deep geothermal energy can play its role in Europe’s future energy supply in an increasingly sustainable way and to create a robust strategy to answer environmental concerns. The GEOENVI project, will be on-going for 30 months.

Sharing of knowledge on environmental concerns by adopting an open and FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) data approach is a key point of the project. A first objective is to provide geothermal market actors with a toolbox including tools and adapted methodologies on environmental impact assessments of geothermal energy projects, using a life cycle assessment approach. A second objective is to exchange best practices regarding environmental regulations.
The GEOENVI project focuses on six key countries with varying deep geothermal potential, markets maturity and geological settings: France, Italy, Belgium, Iceland, Turkey and Hungary. These countries have been selected upon potential for deep geothermal and operating (or under development) plants. They also present different and complementary geological settings as well as profiles of environmental concerns.

Case studies have been selected in each of the six targeted countries. This project will engage with all geothermal stakeholders to ensure the exchange of best practices, the test of harmonized methods in selected areas and then, to facilitate its replication across Europe. As a result, the environmental risks and impacts of geothermal energy projects shall be reduced while maximizing the benefits derived from the project to local communities.

At a glance:

• GEOENVI aims to tackle environmental concerns for deploying geothermal energy in Europe
• Project Coordinator: European Geothermal Energy Council
• 16 Partners: Geothermal Operators, National research institutes, Universities
• 6 countries: France, Italy, Belgium, Iceland, Turkey and Hungary
• Project duration: 30 months starting from November 2018