Deputy Minister urges geothermal research

HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam’s national energy development plan does not include geothermal sources, but a senior official said yesterday that it was time to study their potential in the country.

Geothermal energy is heat energy generated and stored in the earth. It is said to be a clean, sustainable source.

Nguyễn Linh Ngọc, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE), was speaking at a conference held in the capital city on geothermal energy in the Asia-Pacific region.

Ngọc said that small-sized hydropower plants provide 70 per cent of the total country’s total energy output, leaving biogas/biomass a distant second at 14 per cent, while renewable energy, including solar and wind energy, both account for about 6 per cent.

Meanwhile, geothermal energy has remained a complete no-show. Feasibility studies were only recently conducted in the central provinces of Quảng Bình and Quảng Trị.

Ngọc said that energy production accounted for the release of 30 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but in Việt Nam, the figure was more than 50 per cent because of pollution from fossil fuels-based energy plants.

In 2015, at COP21, the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, Việt Nam pledged to unconditionally cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 8 per cent by 2030 compared to business-as-usual (BAU) projections, or by up to 25 per cent if international support was forthcoming.

At yesterday’s conference, experts and scientists from many countries discussed direct use of geothermal power and ground-source heat pumps (GSHP), the benefits of geothermal energy and geothermal power production - and technologies for the treatment of geothermal reservoirs to enhance electricity generation.

The many socio-economic benefits of geothermal energy were also highlighted, including energy security, improved ecology and low emissions.

The conference was organised by the Việt Nam Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources and the Geothermal Implementing Agreement (IEA Geothermal).

IEA Geothermal, operating under the International Energy Agency, aims to boost international co-operation on geothermal energy production and use. — VNS