The Olympics of Geothermal – WGC 2023 experience of African participants

Guest article - The WGC 2023 experience of African participants

Carlo Cariaga 8 Nov 2023

This year’s World Geothermal Congress held in Beijing, China was attended by geothermal professionals and researchers from 54 countries and regions from around the world. As the premiere global geothermal event, WGC 2023 provided an excellent platform for cross-regional collaboration, all with the aim of exchanging knowledge and experience to further advance geothermal.

The African region is a rapidly emerging market for geothermal, led by the stellar performance of countries like Kenya and Ethiopia. As such, a significant contingent of participants in the WGC 2023 came from Africa.

In this guest article, Tadele Dagne (Ethiopia), Dr. Azwindini Ernest Tshibalo (South Africa), Jesse Nyokabi (Kenya), and Ian Kiplimo Biwott (Kenya) recount their experience during the WGC 2023, their learnings and challenges, and recommendations for future geothermal events.

This article discusses the African participants’ experience of the WGC2023 in Beijing. The discussions focus on conference preparations, all the activities of the WGC2023, experience from the First Youth Forum in the history of WGC, the field trips, challenges, and participants’ remarks for the future congress.

Geothermal energy is one of the more important baseload elements for achieving carbon emission peaking and carbon neutrality. Through the efforts of governments, the international community, companies, and academia, geothermal is poised to make prominent contributions to addressing global energy and environmental issues and driving sustainable development. It is heat that never sleeps as long as the earth exists. It is everywhere under our feet making its potential unlimited all over the world.

The 7th World Geothermal Congress 2023 was the premier global geothermal event of the year. It brought together geothermal professionals from 54 countries throughout five continents to study and discuss the exploration, development, and utilization of geothermal, accelerate the development of renewable energy, and stand together to respond to the challenges of global climate change. Moreover, technology and innovation were a focus of the congress that allowed us to foresee future attainments – this was demonstrated by the exhibition of various technologies.

Following the World Geothermal Congress 2023 in Beijing, China, the International Geothermal Association (IGA) declared The Beijing Declaration – a document that highlights the role of geothermal energy in the energy transition movement, outlines what the global geothermal industry will do, and calls for support from decision-makers in the industry.

Conference preparation

The conference preparation was quite long, requiring us to pass through the whole process of technical program designing, announcements, review of abstracts and papers, including all kinds of necessary facilitation.

Conference preparation was very smooth for most of the participants. Support was always available from the technical committee and other structures that were made available. Visas were ready not more than one month before the conference. The technical committee and IGA were very supportive. We appreciate the approval of the Fellowship funding for the conference registration and hotel reservation.

Ernest as an Academic Associate at the University of South Africa (UNISA) found the preparation of the conference not easy from his institution. This is because the position of an Academic Associate is a contract position. When he submitted the conference attendance forms to the management committee, he was told his contract had expired and that it might be considered if the contract could be renewed. Since his contract was not renewed, he had to pay Visa costs and Flight costs on his own, but he appreciates the approval of the Fellowship funding for the conference registration and hotel reservation.

WGC 2023 in Beijing

There have been several events during WGC2023 in Beijing, China which has given different experiences. The event ran 10 parallel sessions at the China National Convention Center (CNCC). In terms of networking and partnership, WGC did allow us to meet with many peoples around the world including members of the IGA staff, CEO, and the President.

The IGA booth was the place where we had a chance to meet with Sylvian Brogle, Marit Brommer, Sam Abraham, Gregor Rumberg, Helen Robinson, and other renowned people. We got an opportunity to meet African participants and shared contacts for future partnership. This led to the formation of the group writing this article.

We met with other global geothermal professionals who we have connected with digitally before WGC happened in Beijing. Ernest especially felt honored meeting professor Roland Horne, and for him to attend my presentation and participate in Q&A.

In addition, it was a nice opportunity to meet with WGC2026 delegate, Steven Grasby from Calgary, Canada in Beijing with whom we have chatted and exchanged contacts with for the next WGC where we all intend to join the global geothermal community.

In terms of presentations, we experienced a lot – Jesse and Ernest as presenters, Tadele as a member of technical committee & session chair, and Ian as an attendee. Jesse gave two presentations related to Public Private partnership (PPP) and machine learning applications while Ernest presented the country update for South Africa.

It was a shocking experience for Ernest to find that his presentation had not been uploaded into the online system while he was there to give the presentation. Fortunately, he had a copy of the presentation in his USB drive. Based on this experience, the IGA together with the organizer should double-check whether such presentations and requirements have been well-arranged. As per the experience of Tadele as a session chair, we noticed the absence of presenters in their dedicated schedules.

We attended different technical sessions that helped us to understand the latest scientific and technical developments within the vast world of geothermal. The release of a  global standard during WGC2023 is one of the important achievements to frame our collective efforts for better development of geothermal resources.

As part of WGC, there were interesting opening and closing sessions where some great ideas were raised by the IGA top management, the China Vice Premier, the Iceland Prime Minister, as well as other speakers including the amazing Chinese cultural shows.

Experience from the 1st Youth Forum

During the World Geothermal Congress 2023 held in Beijing, China, a group of 80 young professionals from the geothermal industry came together for a workshop to network, collaborate, and come up with an action plan to contribute to the advancement of geothermal and secure the support needed for this mission.

The result of the workshop was as a Youth Forum Declaration stating the youth’s vision for the future of geothermal and their collective call for action for young geothermal professionals worldwide.

Field trips

Ian was part of the field trip to the different parts of China where he had the opportunity to se and learn about different geothermal sites.

Scientific Visit to Henan

He was privileged to take field visits to Henan province’s Chinese geothermal areas. These excursions provided a hands-on look at geothermal research, drilled wells, and direct use in action. Seeing geothermal energy become a part of China’s energy mix was a priceless experience.

Henan is in east-central China. It is China’s most populous province, with over 100 million residents and a home to the Yellow River. Henan is recognized as the birthplace of the Chinese nation and civilization, thus making it an ideal place for our field trip. In this report, we have highlighted and discussed briefly various places we visited during our stay in Henan.

Zhongmou Geothermal Energy Port Project

In sharing the common goal of combating climate change and achieving zero carbon emissions, Wanjiang Energy Limited developed a comprehensive heating energy port coupled with technologies such as mid-deep geothermal underground heat exchange, cross-season energy storage, charging stations, efficient heat pumps, and intelligent optical storage. This project provides residents with new energy vehicle charging and exchange services, comprehensively utilizing various clean energy sources.

Lankao Geothermal Heating Project

This project demonstrates a new energy revolution in rural Lankao County. The main feature of this project is a dual heating and cooling supply. It is done in two phases, with the first phase heating and cooling an area of 88,800 square meters and the second phase of 250,000 square meters. It has one heat exchange station, four geothermal wells (two for extraction and two for injection), one heat pump, and two chilled water units. The project was implemented in 2018 and has saved 16,000 tons of standard coal, thus reducing CO2 emissions by 42,0000.

Songshan Geopark

Songshan is a comprehensive geological park characterized by its geological structures, geological landscapes, water features, and harmonious coexistence of ecology and culture. The park exposes geological periods: Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic eras, commonly called “Five Generations under One Roof. “In 2004, the park was officially awarded the title of “World Geological Park.” Its unique basin ridge and landforms with beautiful ecological environment has made the park a “natural geological museum.”

Challenges

The main challenge that we experienced was communication, both at the conference and the hotel. We found it quite challenging to communicate with peoples and get service. For some of us the hotel facilities were a bit uncomfortable, especially the bathrooms.

Fellowship movement between the airport and the hotels could have been arranged. Also, from the hotel to the Conference Centre every day. Travelling between hotels and the congress Centre was inconvenient. Those who were travelling between the two locations arrived at the conference Centre tired and sweating.

We found it extremely difficult to get internet connectivity which hampered many of our communication at home, as well as with WGC participants in Beijing. It was completely impossible to use Google navigation from hotel to convention center due to the absence of internet connection.

Some challenges related to uploading conference papers were observed during the process.

Our recommendations for the future

In the future WGC 2026 in Calgary, we recommend the following changes based on our experience in Beijing:

• ISBN for Conference Proceedings: We recommend that the WGC Conference Proceedings be given the ISBN. This is because in some countries, like South Africa, higher education institutions do not support conference attendance and accredit conference proceedings without this number. The absence of this number can discourage academics from writing papers for World Geothermal Congresses.
• VISA letters should be written also in English. This is because the information in the letter is required to fill some sections of the Visa application form. It is time consuming to request the Visa section to translate the information into English.
• We look forward to seeing improvements in the conference paper management system in future so that the absence of uploaded presentations can be guaranteed.
• Conference organizers should make available shuttle service from airport to hotel as well as from hotel to convection center.
• If possible, fellowship application results should be made earlier. This will assist the applicants to start applying for Visa on time.
• More participants from developing countries: as everyone understands we observe slowness in the development of geothermal resources from developing countries, especially in Africa due to many factors. We believe one of the reasons is the lack of expertise in the area. Hence, we strongly suggest increasing the number participants from Africa with the support of fellowship offers.

About the authors

Tadele Dagne

• Remote Sensing & GIS Specialist, Acacia Water
• Technical Committee member of WGC2023, IGA Rep. for Ethiopia
• tadelegeol@gmail.com

Dr Azwindini Ernest Tshibalo

• IGA Ambassador in South Africa
• Academic Associate, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of South Africa
• tshibae@unisa.ac.za

Jesse Nyokabi

• Green Energy Pacesetter
• Working on invigorating innovation and technologies to accelerate the adoption of Green Energy
• nyokabijesse@gmail.com

Ian Kiplimo Biwott

• Graduate Energy Engineering, Kenyatta University
• Geothermal energy enthusiast
• ianleemore@gmail.com