| Abstract |
The Andean Geothermal Center of Excellence (CEGA, for its Spanish acronyms) begun its operations by December 2010, product of the interest of a group of scientists that applied to a state fund to create a research center that could address a critical topic that had been neglected by local scientific production and the State planning of energy development, despite of having the world’s largest untapped geothermal potential. CEGA was awarded a Fondap fund, the Chilean national program for excellence research centers in priority areas, one of the most competitive programs of the Chilean National Science Foundation (CONICYT). These Fondap programs support excellence centers for a period of five years, renewable for other additional five years after international positive evaluation. CEGA is hosted in the Department of Geology of the Universidad de Chile, the principal institution, and includes researchers from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (the associated institution), Universidad Austral de Chile and National Geological Survey. CEGA is working in five main strategic lines: high level research, training, networking, outreach and applied scientific goals. Research goals were focused on the establishment of a comprehensive geological model for the Andean geothermal systems, addressing different case studies (natural laboratories) existing in northern, central and southern Chile. Five main research lines were established for allowing our main goals: (1) heat sources; (2) fluid and isotopic geochemistry; (3) heat-fluid-rock interaction, (4) structural geology & geophysics and (5) reservoir architecture and modelling. Each research line has been working on specific scientific questions but also in interdisciplinary projects, both for high- and low-enthalpy systems. Strategic integrative projects for high-enthalpy systems were proposed for Northern and Southern Chile. And for low-enthalpy systems, integrative projects between all research lines were developed with the aim to promote direct-use in our society. After the ten years period granted by CONICYT, CEGA consolidated as an internationally well reputed research center. The establishment of world-class analytical facilities was another major highlight of these ten years. Almost fifty professionals worked in the center and more than two hundred of undergraduate and post-graduate (MSc and PhD level) developed their theses in our center. CEGA positioned as one of the most relevant centers for training and capacity building in the region. Numerous ISI papers and presentations in national and international congress turned CEGA into a prestigious center for high impact science generation. CEGA also contributes to the improvement of geothermal industry in Chile and the rest of the Andean countries, and a special program was created for the development of direct use projects in different places in central and southern Chile. Outreach activities were also relevant during these ten years and positioned CEGA as a referent for dissemination and work with society and indigenous communities. Unfortunately, the continuity of CEGA beyond November 2020, the last month granted by Fondap, might not be possible, as industry investment in science is rare in our country and geothermal industry specifically is minuscule in Chile, without the State support all these high impact initiatives might be dramatically interrupted, in accordance with the history of geothermal development of the country where during the last century initiatives flourish and vanish lacking a public policy that allow them to keep a momentum |