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PARIS, France, December 21, 2005 (Refocus
Weekly)
Europe had installed 4,531 MW of earth energy
heat pumps by the end of last year, reporting an increase of 20%
over 2003.
The 25 countries have 379,183 units installed, compared with
310,353 in 2003, according to the latest Barometer produced by the
EurObserv'ER consortium. The data do not include 33,000 systems
installed in Switzerland.
The leading country is Sweden with 185,531 systems installed with
1,700 MW of thermal capacity, followed by Germany with 48,662
systems (633 MW-t), Austria with 30,577 (612), France with 49,950
(550) and Finland with 30,000 systems (300 MW-t of capacity). The
balance of the top-ten countries is Netherlands, Italy, Poland,
Denmark and Belgium.
The capacity indicates the thermal output of the heat pumps and not
to the geothermal resource that heat pumps can draw from the ground,
and the use of geothermal energy corresponding to the installed
capacity is 0.58 Mtoe, the report notes. “The European Union is one
of the main regions of the world to have developed this technology.”
“Total worldwide heat pump capacity has considerably increased these
last five years,” and the total installed capacity of earth energy
systems was 13, 815 MW-t last year, based on 1.2 million units with
average capacity of 12 kW-t each), compared with 5,275 MW-t in 2000.
The geothermal energy transferred from the ground was 1.45 Mtoe in
2004, a 300% increase from 2000.
Compared with deep-bore geothermal electric and geothermal direct
use thermal (tapping into subterranean water tables where the
temperature is 30 degrees C to 150 degrees C), “the heat pump
industry is by far the most dynamic of the three geothermal
sectors,” the report concludes. “Strong heat pump market growth has
had important consequences on the industrial strategies of the main
heating market actors who have sought to benefit from the present
popularity of geothermal heat pumps.”
In Europe, the capacity of direct use geothermal was 2,059 MW-t last
year in the 25-member EU, an increase of 718 MW-t over 2000. The
largest application (37%) is for hot water in baths and swimming
pools, slightly ahead of the 36% for heating buildings, followed by
19% for heating greenhouses and 6% for fish farming.
A world conference on geothermal energy in Turkey earlier this year
estimated the total capacity for geothermal heat to be 12,103 MW-t,
an increase of 2,233 MW-t over 2000.
The difficulty in determining thermal capacity makes forecast work
“very difficult for experts,” and the report notes that the increase
between 2000 and 2004 may result “more from problems of estimating
the use of the resource than from a significant growth” in direct
use applications. It says an annual increase of 50 MW until 2010
seems to be a “reasonable hypothesis” and would bring direct use
geothermal capacity to 2,360 MW-t.
“The situation is much more favourable” for the earth energy heat
pump market and, if that sector can maintain an average annual
growth rate of 10% until 2010, “it could reach a capacity of 8,000
MW.” The objectives in the EU white paper of 5,000 MW, including
2,500 MW-t of heat pumps for the 15-member EU, were exceeded last
year.
The EC new public awareness campaign, ‘Sustainable Energy Europe
Campaign 2005- 2008,’ sets precise targets for 2008 in terms of
geothermal, including 250,000 new heat pumps, 15 new geothermal
electrical power plants and 10 new low-temperature power plants.
“Taking current geothermal heat pump market growth into
consideration (25% between 2003 and 2004), the new campaign
objective appears to be completely achievable.”
EurObserv'ER is a consortium of six renewable energy groups in
Europe, and publishes regular analyses on renewable energy
technologies on the continent.
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