Sinopec to continue push geothermal development in China with a focus on heating

Forbidden City, Beijing, China (source: flickr/ David Stanley, creative commons)

Alexander Richter 29 Nov 2018

Reported by China Daily this week, oil giant China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec), the country’s biggest geothermal developer, has announced to further push its geothermal development activities throughout China and increase the share of clean energy production.

Through its work on geothermal heating projects in 10 cities throughout China, Sinopec has been able to replace coal with geothermal, so Ma Yongsheng, president of Sinopec, during the 2018 China Geothermal Energy International Forum in Shanghai.

The company has large ambitions and aims to push for further development replacing coal for heating with geothermal energy in 20 cities in China boosting its geothermal heating capacity to 120 million cubic meters by 2023.

It has also pledged to increase its share of clean energy production to more than 50 percent within six years, by upping its output of natural gas, shale gas and related facilities.

Regions heated by geothermal energy in China have exceeded 150 square km so far, with a substantial boost seen in recent years. The northern part of China, with sufficient geothermal energy, aims to have 1000 square km of geothermal energy heated regions by 2021.

China aims to increase its installed geothermal energy capacity by 500 GW from 2016 to 2020, according to the 13th Five-Year Plan for geothermal energy released in 2016, the first such plan in this field.

Considering the massive resources of geothermal energy in the country, which accounts for one sixth of the global total amount, analysts believe the exploration and development of the clean energy plays a significant role in the country’s energy optimization and security.

Source: XinhuaNet