07 Jun 2024

Margarita de Gregorio in 20 minutos: ‘We want to put geothermal energy on the agenda’.

Margarita de Gregorio, secretary general of GEOPLAT, discusses in a report for 20minutos the potential of geothermal energy and the objectives set by the recently created Spanish Association of Geothermal – GEOENERGÍA, a spin off of GEOPLAT.

GEOENERGÍA is the national business association that will encompass companies in the geothermal sector in the country and is born with the priority of responding to the development and growing opportunities of geothermal energy in Spain. It will foster dialogue between legislators, society and the sector to provide a favourable political and social framework for a greater potentialisation of the sector.

‘We want to put geothermal energy on the agenda and give visibility to an energy source that arises hundreds of metres underground but also closer to the surface and that can reach homes in the same way that gas pipelines or heat pumps that run on electricity from other renewable sources,’ says De Gregorio.

The CEO of GEOENERGÍA also explains that, along with deep and medium-temperature geothermal energy, there is also shallow geothermal energy, capable of bringing heating or air conditioning to homes by taking advantage of an underground temperature of around 19 or 20 degrees which, in the case of Spain, is found throughout its territory. One of GEOENERGÍA’s objectives is to ‘enhance the value of this energy and promote a regulatory framework that favours shallow geothermal energy, capable of providing heat from the earth just five metres below the surface, where it can already reach temperatures of around 20 degrees’. In some cases, it will convert heat from underground into heating and hot water in exchange for transferring the cold deep into the earth, from where it will be recovered in warmer periods to power cooling systems that keep houses cool in summer.”

“The ground is always at the same temperature, it is the bodega effect and it is highly efficient because there will never be peaks in demand, geothermal energy is constant, requires no maintenance and, depending on what it replaces, saves up to 30 or 35% of the electricity bill‘, said Margarita de Gregorio.

Full interview in 20 minutes.