The geothermal industry in Australia has shown significant innovation in its activity. While it has not been able to demonstrate economical large-scale power generation so far, it has shown sufficient potential for geothermal technology to be included in a suite of options to ensure Australia’s future energy security, and, as such, should be pursued with ongoing investment in research and development.
- Australia has significant geothermal resources; however, there are also significant challenges to exploiting these resources to produce energy or useable heat.
- While Australia saw a boom in activity and investment for geothermal resource development in the late 2000s, the industry has since faced several key challenges which have been financially damaging to some of the companies involved.
- Rapid and ongoing technology development in other renewable energy sources has also put the comparative benefits of geothermal energy under development pressure.
- Despite the challenges, there is still potential for improving Australia’s energy security with a viable geothermal energy source. This will require pragmatic and consistent research and development, which would represent a departure from the previous ‘boom and bust’ nature of the industry (as is common in other resource or energy industries).