Chile to promote geothermal energy across public entities
El Tatio Geysers, Chile (source: flickr/ Terry Feuerborn, creative commons)
Francisco Rojas
6 Sep 2013
Chilean entities perform a 3-day promotion event to foster the awareness on geothermal energy.
A workshop was run on the 3rd September in Iquique, Arica Wednesday 4th and Tuesday 10 at Antofagasta, Chile; where the idea was to promote “Geothermal Capacity Building for Public Services“
The biggest handicap that geothermal energy has, its the limited public awareness when compared with other types of renewable energy such as wind or solar; so these workshops focusing on public services provide more awareness acting as a key tool in for promotion.
Geothermal power in Chile has potential to respond effectively to the guidelines that the country’s energy policy has set a goal for the year 2025, a target to have a 20 % of the power supply generated by non-conventional renewable sources.
Additionally, our country has a high potential for the installation of geothermal energy generating plants to be located on the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, an area that is characterized by high volcanic activity.
Nevertheless, despite all the advantages that exist, this clean renewable energy has yet to achieve consolidation within the energy matrix and must overcome some barriers. This is why the Center for Renewable Energy (CER) , in conjunction with the Chilean Geothermal Council , held the aforementioned 3-day promotion events in order to expose the main concepts and technical aspects related to this means of energy generation; to serve as background knowledge for public services to be manifest in the environmental assessment of geothermal projects .
National and international experts presented key aspects and examples of other promising countries in geothermal energy.
The Regional Ministerial Secretariat for Energy in the North Zone, Carlos Arenas states that “geothermal energy is considered a base source, which has a high capacity factor which is perfectly adaptable to the demand curve of our electric system, which can be supplied in incessantly, 24 hours 365 days a year. Besides this type of energy not only generates electricity, but also produces heat, which can be used to temper swimming pools for tourists, as well as heating of greenhouses for growing flowers or agriculture”
According to Fernando Hentzschel, Technical Manager in the Renewable Energy Center (REC) , “Chile currently has 80 exploration concessions on record, of which 48 correspond to existing geothermal exploration licenses, 32 exploration concessions due to existing exclusive right (Article 14 of law No. 19,657). Also are recorded seven geothermal concessions.
The most advanced, current geothermal generation projects are the Cerro Pabellon and Caracautin plants, both approved by the Environmental Evaluation Service.
Source : CORFO via Piensa en Geotermia
