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World Geothermal Congress 2020 – Virtual Event & Global Updates – April 27, 2020

World Geothermal Congress 2020 – Virtual Event & Global Updates – April 27, 2020 WGC 2020 - Virtual Event - Global Geothermal Updates - 27 April 2020
Alexander Richter 16 Apr 2020

Despite the postponement of the World Geothermal Congress 2020 to May 2021, the organisers have decided to host a virtual event on April 27, 2020 - and feature the global updates on Geothermal Power Generation and Geothermal Direct Use.

The Organising Committee of the World Geothermal Congress 2020 in Reykjavik, Iceland, in conjunction with the International Geothermal Association (IGA), will be hosting a virtual event on Monday, 27 April 2020 – The same time as the opening ceremony was originally scheduled for. As the highly anticipated WGC in Reykjavik, Iceland had to be postponed to May of next year, work has continued in trying to connect the global geothermal community and provide some well-deserved distraction in these challenging times to all of us. The event will be streamed on the WGC website and will feature presentations on the Global Update Papers on Geothermal Power and Geothermal Direct Use respectively as well as an address from the President of Iceland, the Organising Committee and the IGA.

Time of the event: Monday, April 27, 2020 – 2pm Icelandic time

Other time zones: 11pm (Tokyo), 9pm (Jakarta), 5pm (Nairobi), 4pm (Berlin), 10am (New York), 7am (San Francisco), 2am +1 day (Auckland)

“While we were forced to postpone WGC 2020 due to the circumstances around the world, we are grateful for the understanding and continued support by registrants and sponsors for the decision to postpone the event by a year. So, we wanted to engage with the global geothermal community and thought organising a virtual event featuring the papers with global geothermal updates is a great way to do that. These updates highlight the great progress that our industry has made in the past few years and I think set a great stage for discussions next year in Reykjavik, namely, on the direction of our industry. We are honoured that the President of Iceland continues his support, also showing the level of commitment the government of Iceland has for geothermal.” so Dr. Bjarni Pálsson, Chair of the WGC 2020 Organising Committee and Head of Geothermal at Icelandic national power company Landsvirkjun.

Draft Agenda:

  • WGC2020 Organising Committee – Dr. Bjarni Pálsson & Hidda Thorsteinsson
  • Address by the President of Iceland, Gudni Th. Jóhannesson
  • Address by the President and Executive Director of IGA, Alexander Richter & Dr. Marit Brommer
  • Address by Prof. Roland Horne, Chair of the WGC2020 Technical Committee
  • Global Geothermal Power Update – Gerald Huttrer
  • Global Geothermal Direct Use Update – Dr. John Lund
  • Address by Dr. Juliet Newson, Chair of WGC 2020 Steering committee, Frída Ómarsdóttir, GRÓ Geothermal Training Program & incoming IGA President Andy Blair

The event will be streamed on the WGC 2020 website.

After the event the papers of the global updates on power and direct use, as well as 88 country updates will be made available for download in the Paper Database of the IGA.

A recording of the event will be available after the event.