The canton of Geneva’s utility company has launched an ambitious exploration program seeking potential sources of geothermal energy in 33 municipalities, including eight in the neighboring canton of Vaud.
The program is part of the 20-million-franc GEothermie 2020 project launched last year by the Services Industriels de Genève (SIG) to find naturally occurring sources of hot water beneath the earth’s surface.
Heat can be extracted from this water to power electrical power generators or to provide heating.
SIG said that initial tests last year in an eight-kilometer zone between the municipalities of Chancy and Bernex in the far west of Switzerland, concluded that hot water is available in the Lake Geneva basin in limestone rock at levels less deep than previously thought — as little as 500 meters.
