News

Netherlands includes geothermal heat into renewable incentive scheme

Netherlands includes geothermal heat into renewable incentive scheme City of Leiden, Netherlands - not directly related to story (source: flickr/ ironmanixs, creative commons)
Alexander Richter 9 Nov 2011

In a new support scheme for sustainable heat, the Netherlands includes geothermal heat in new renewable incentive scheme, which is similar to the feed-in-tariff-systems in place in other countries.

Reported by EGEC, “Last week, the Dutch ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture & Innovation published some of the key figures for the new scheme SDE+ (which stands for stimulation of sustainable/renewable energy), which will be the main support scheme for sustainable heat from 2012.

Previous editions of the scheme were only aimed at electricity and green fuels, and the inclusion of sustainable heat (including geothermal heat), is a significant improvement. It is thought that sustainable heat may receive a government contribution per produced GigaJoule (which would be similar to Feed-in systems in other countries). It will take the form of a tender scheme, in which geothermal energy will have to compete with other forms of renewable energy, though public calculations undertaken by the ECN/KEMA (research institutes that advice the Ministry), suggest that the cost of geothermal heat compares favourably with those of other types of renewable energy, if calculated with the same key inputs such as depreciation, interest rates, internal rate of return, energy pricing scenarios etc. It is expected that the exact contribution per GigaJoule depends on gas prices (and differences with the costs of heat, produced with natural gas) and therefore will vary per year. The 2012 contribution will probably be in the region of 3 euro per GJ (1,08 eurocent per kWhr (thermal).

It is expected that this new SDE+ incentive may significantly accelerate the development of geothermal capacity in the Netherlands. EGEC Member, the Dutch Platform Geothermie, has been a long-time advocate of such a scheme, which contributes to a level playing field between geothermal and other forms of renewable energy. It is now up to the industry to safely implement the potential created by this new development.”

Source: EGEC