With an installed global power capacity of 12.6 GW and growing, the year ahead for geothermal power production expansion has a positive outlook.
The outlook for the geothermal industry in 2016 is “positive,” Geothermal Resources Council President Paul Brophy said at the start of the year.
“While there has been some apprehension about the future of the industry as an industry, where it’s going and what the development rate is like is slowly becoming clearer,” he said.
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| Installed capacity in 2015 worldwide. Credit: Geothermal Power Generation in the World 2010-2014 Update Report, Ruggero Bertani |
The current expectation of global geothermal energy through the end of the decade is that annual capacity installations will bring the existing approximately 12.6 GW to nearly 21.5 GW, with smaller increases in 2016-2017 giving way to larger annual increases from 2018-2020, according to data presented in April by Ruggero Bertani, geothermal business development manager for Enel, during the 2015 World Geothermal Congress.