Geothermal energy in Italy is mainly used for electric power production. [1]
Italy is located above a relatively thin crust, with four large areas of underground heat:
A 2018 report by the Italian Geothermal Union indicated that Italy has additional geothermal energy potential which has yet to be utilized. [3]
Research into the potential for geothermal energy started in 1977, following the oil crisis, with work of ENEL [4] and ENI, which started jointly to bore hundreds of wells in Italy, creating a complete map of the underground resource. But in the '90s, the exploratory activity stopped.[ citation needed ]
Following results a mapping of Italy in four areas:
Italy uses its lower temperature fluids for spas, agriculture, industry and district heating. [1] A large portion of house heating is concentrated in the Abano spa area, in northeast Italy. As district heating the most important plants are in Ferrara and Vicenza in the eastern Po Valley, about 1990. Smaller district heating plants are found in Bagno di Romagna and Acqui Terme. [5]
A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma or by circulation through faults to hot rock deep in the Earth's crust.
Geothermal power in Iceland refers to the use of geothermal energy in Iceland for electricity generation.
Geothermal energy is thermal energy extracted from the Earth's crust. It combines energy from the formation of the planet and from radioactive decay. Geothermal energy has been exploited as a source of heat and/or electric power for millennia.
Geothermal heating is the direct use of geothermal energy for some heating applications. Humans have taken advantage of geothermal heat this way since the Paleolithic era. Approximately seventy countries made direct use of a total of 270 PJ of geothermal heating in 2004. As of 2007, 28 GW of geothermal heating capacity is installed around the world, satisfying 0.07% of global primary energy consumption. Thermal efficiency is high since no energy conversion is needed, but capacity factors tend to be low since the heat is mostly needed in the winter.
District heating is a system for distributing heat generated in a centralized location through a system of insulated pipes for residential and commercial heating requirements such as space heating and water heating. The heat is often obtained from a cogeneration plant burning fossil fuels or biomass, but heat-only boiler stations, geothermal heating, heat pumps and central solar heating are also used, as well as heat waste from factories and nuclear power electricity generation. District heating plants can provide higher efficiencies and better pollution control than localized boilers. According to some research, district heating with combined heat and power (CHPDH) is the cheapest method of cutting carbon emissions, and has one of the lowest carbon footprints of all fossil generation plants.
Geothermal gradient is the rate of change in temperature with respect to increasing depth in Earth's interior. As a general rule, the crust temperature rises with depth due to the heat flow from the much hotter mantle; away from tectonic plate boundaries, temperature rises in about 25–30 °C/km (72–87 °F/mi) of depth near the surface in the continental crust. However, in some cases the temperature may drop with increasing depth, especially near the surface, a phenomenon known as inverse or negative geothermal gradient. The effects of weather, the Sun, and season only reach a depth of roughly 10–20 m (33–66 ft).
Renewable heat is an application of renewable energy referring to the generation of heat from renewable sources; for example, feeding radiators with water warmed by focused solar radiation rather than by a fossil fuel boiler. Renewable heat technologies include renewable biofuels, solar heating, geothermal heating, heat pumps and heat exchangers. Insulation is almost always an important factor in how renewable heating is implemented.
A ground-coupled heat exchanger is an underground heat exchanger that can capture heat from and/or dissipate heat to the ground. They use the Earth's near constant subterranean temperature to warm or cool air or other fluids for residential, agricultural or industrial uses. If building air is blown through the heat exchanger for heat recovery ventilation, they are called earth tubes.
A ground source heat pump is a heating/cooling system for buildings that use a type of heat pump to transfer heat to or from the ground, taking advantage of the relative constancy of temperatures of the earth through the seasons. Ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs) – or geothermal heat pumps (GHP), as they are commonly termed in North America – are among the most energy-efficient technologies for providing HVAC and water heating, using far less energy than can be achieved by burning a fuel in a boiler/furnace or by use of resistive electric heaters.
The potential for exploiting geothermal energy in the United Kingdom on a commercial basis was initially examined by the Department of Energy in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis. Several regions of the country were identified, but interest in developing them was lost as petroleum prices fell. Although the UK is not actively volcanic, a large heat resource is potentially available via shallow geothermal ground source heat pumps, shallow aquifers and deep saline aquifers in the mesozoic basins of the UK. Geothermal energy is plentiful beneath the UK, although it is not readily accessible currently except in specific locations.
An enhanced geothermal system (EGS) generates geothermal electricity without natural convective hydrothermal resources. Traditionally, geothermal power systems operated only where naturally occurring heat, water, and rock permeability are sufficient to allow energy extraction. However, most geothermal energy within reach of conventional techniques is in dry and impermeable rock. EGS technologies expand the availability of geothermal resources through stimulation methods, such as 'hydraulic stimulation'.
Geothermal power is electrical power generated from geothermal energy. Technologies in use include dry steam power stations, flash steam power stations and binary cycle power stations. Geothermal electricity generation is currently used in 26 countries, while geothermal heating is in use in 70 countries.
Geothermal energy is a significant part of renewable energy in Turkey: it is used for geothermal heating and generates 3% of the nation's electricity. Turkey is the world's second largest user of geothermal heating, after China. Many greenhouses, spas and homes are heated by underground water; and many more buildings could be heated in this way.
Deep water source cooling (DWSC) or deep water air cooling is a form of air cooling for process and comfort space cooling which uses a large body of naturally cold water as a heat sink. It uses water at 4 to 10 degrees Celsius drawn from deep areas within lakes, oceans, aquifers or rivers, which is pumped through the one side of a heat exchanger. On the other side of the heat exchanger, cooled water is produced.
Geothermal exploration began in China in the 1970s. It was initially handled by national bodies with public investments, and productive wells were transferred free of charge to the final user. Since the mid-1990s, under the framework of privatization and liberalization of the economy, national investment in exploration has been reduced. No new plants have been commissioned in the period 2000–2005. The only electricity-producing fields are located in Tibet. According to the "2005 Chinese Geothermal Environment Bulletin" by China's Ministry of Land and Resources, the direct utilization of geothermal energy in China will reach 13.76 cubic metres (486 cu ft) per second, and the geothermal energy will reach 10,769 megawatts, ranking first in the world.
Canada has substantial potential for geothermal energy development. To date, development has all been for heating applications. Canada has 103,523 direct use installations as of 2013. There is currently no electricity being generated from geothermal sources in Canada although substantial potential exists in the Canadian Cordillera. The most advanced project exists as a test geothermal-electrical site at the Mount Meager massif in British Columbia, where a 100 MegaWatt (MW) facility could be developed. Potential for enhanced geothermal energy systems (EGS) exists throughout Canada. There are six geothermal power and two direct use projects listed with the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association.
Geothermal energy is the second most used form of renewable energy in Russia but represents less than 1% of the total energy production. The first geothermal power plant in Russia, which was the first Binary cycle power station in the world, was built at Pauzhetka, Kamchatka, in 1966, with a capacity of 5 MW. The total geothermal installed capacity is 81.9 MW, with 50 MW coming from a plant at Verkhne-Mutnovsky.Two other plants were built on the Kamchatka Peninsula in 1999 and 2002. Two smaller additional plants were installed on the islands of Kunashir and Iturup in 2007. Most geothermal resources are currently used for heating settlements in the North Caucasus and Kamchatka. Half of the geothermal production is used to heat homes and industrial buildings, one third is used to heat greenhouses and 13% is used for industrial processes.
The Glossary of Geothermal Heating and Cooling provides definitions of many terms used within the Geothermal heat pump industry. The terms in this glossary may be used by industry professionals, for education materials, and by the general public.
Geothermal power in Ukraine has substantial potential for further development. There is about 7 MWt of geothermal heating of communal buildings and baths in Ukraine with this continuing in an upward trend following a lack of reported geothermal data from 2005-2020. Commercial use of heat pumps as well as balneological purposes can be directly linked to the growth of this number. As of 2023 there is no geothermal electricity generation in Ukraine. Despite this, there has been initiative to examine the prospective capabilities of this region and results have demonstrated that there are locations proven to be adequate for further development.
Closed-loop geothermal systems are a type of engineered geothermal energy system containing subsurface working fluid that is heated in a hot rock reservoir without direct contact with rock pores and fractures.: Instead, the subsurface working fluid stays inside a closed loop of deeply buried pipes that conduct Earth’s heat. Closed-loop geothermal systems are one of the prominent categories of next-generation geothermal systems in development today.
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