| Title | The Netherlands Country Update Geothermal Energy |
|---|---|
| Authors | E.V. van Heekeren, M. Koenders |
| Year | 2010 |
| Conference | World Geothermal Congress |
| Keywords | Netherlands, geothermal energy, country update |
| Abstract | Dutch interest and activities in deep geothermal energy – essentially non-existent 5 years ago - increased dramatically in recent years, while the market penetration of shallow geothermal applications showed very healthy growth numbers. Geology. Aquifers that are developed and/or investigated for heating purposes occur at depths of a few meters to roughly 4.000 m in Permian, Lower Triassic and Lower Cretaceous sandstones and in Tertiary sand units. Less is known of deeper layers, but interest is growing to investigate and exploit the geothermal potential – including the electricity producing potential - of layers > 4.000 meter. The temperature gradients are fairly normal at values slightly over 300C per kilometer with a starting value of 100C at surface level. State of development. In the Netherlands, the use of the shallow underground for extraction and storage of thermal energy started in the early 80-ties. The development was fast – as in the Netherlands aquifers can be found almost everywhere. Market penetration is expected to reach 1200 Heat&Cold storage installations end of 2009 and 25.000 GSHP’s. In recent years the first three deep geothermal wells were drilled and went on-stream. Drilling activities are ongoing or foreseen for 2010 on at least two more locations. The number of licence applications for deep drillings increased to > 40 – mostly for aquifers in the range of 1500 – 3500 meter. In the meantime the interest in deeper layers is steadily increasing. Dutch government policy nowadays takes account of (deep) geothermal but there are yet serious flaws and shortcomings in the Dutch legal framework. The Dutch Platform for Geothermal Energy was established end of 2002 and saw a rise in participants from 6 to > 50 organisations. |