15 Jan 2024

Margarita de Gregorio: “The interesting thing about geothermal energy is that it can always be available to produce electricity, it is manageable”.

Recently, the Instituto para la Diversificación y Ahorro de la Energía (IDAE) awarded 120 million euros from the Next Generation funds to 14 projects to explore the potential of deep geothermal energy in Spain.

La Razón has published a report on the potential of geothermal energy in Spain. Margarita de Gregorio, coordinator of Geoplat, explained to this media that “within geothermal energy there are two different universes that coexist: one is called deep geothermal energy, which allows electricity to be generated, and the other is shallow or superficial, which is used for air conditioning”.

The directive stated that “in both cases, thermal anomalies in the earth’s crust are exploited; if they are located at a depth of tens of metres and coincide with the presence of an aquifer, this is known as a geothermal field, and it is enough to drill into the ground to obtain water vapour directly. If it is channelled to the surface, electricity can be generated through a turbine, as in any other thermoelectric power plant, but in this case, instead of gas or coal, the raw material is natural hot water vapour from the earth’s interior”.

She also stressed that “sometimes, even if there is no aquifer, a geothermal field can be created by injecting water into an area of land that is at a high temperature, which makes it possible to exploit this resource in many places where it was not viable until now, extending the exploitation of high-temperature resources to geographical areas where conventional fields have not existed; this technique is called stimulated geothermal energy or stimulated geothermal systems”.

Margarita de Gregorio stated that “the interesting thing about geothermal energy as a source of renewable energy is that to produce electricity it is enough to drill and it can always be available, which is why it is said that geothermal energy is manageable“. On the other hand, she stressed that “shallow geothermal energy is the best technique available for air conditioning”.

You can access the full interview in La Razón.