| Abstract |
The aim of this paper is to highlight the vision of future perspective of new geothermal development strategies. Djibouti has a long history of geothermal resource exploration since 1970, as the country is endowed with numerous geological structures. ODDEG (Office Djiboutien de Developpement de l‟Energie Geothermique), the newly created specialized agency is the expression of the strong political commitment of the government to achieve the goal of achieving a development of this affordable energy. Djibouti‟s location at the junction of three main active geological structures, and the presence of numerous surface geothermal manifestations with hot springs and fumaroles, gives the country the potential to develop geothermal energy. With an important commitment of the government over this period, intense studies throughout the country have been initiated, which enabled the discovery of an important potential estimated to around 1000 MW. However, after having carried out several drill holes, it was discovered that high temperature resources were difficult to identify away from active magmatic heat sources (as shown at Hanlé), and that some factors such as salinity limited the exploitation of the resource (in the well identified Asal high temperature geothermal site) at that current state of technology. The Government of Djibouti, strongly committed to exploit the resource, asked financials partners to perform additional studies to help finding solutions to these limiting factors. In the last 10 years, the country took the initiative to drastically reduce fossil fuel dependence for power generation by importing electricity of hydro source from Ethiopia and promoting development of its own geothermal potential according to the 2035 vision. In order to develop sustainable geothermal sector, important initiative has been taken for the equipment and capacity building for the manpower with specialized support from several partners like United Nations University Geothermal Training Program and other bilateral partners (Iceland, Japan, and German government agencies). Several exploratory studies have been already started in the Lake Abhe with the technical support from ISOR, Hanle-Garabayiss with technical support from JICA and Sakalol prospect jointly carried out by ODDEG with CERD.Also, the country raised around 31 Million USD for exploration drilling in the Asal-Fiale geothermal field with the financial ofthe World Bank, Afdb, OFID, AFD, with the Djibouti government participation. In order to establish, the first step, i.e. a feasibility study of a 50 MW geothermal power plant, to be extended to 150 MW if the potential will be enough in that area and surroundings. |