by aoife braiden, rml ltd
It seemed like a good idea at the time…
In a hotel bar in Berlin my colleagues Ana Luisa, Sarah and I sat with a beer each and two large pieces of A3 paper. It was October 2022 and we were attending the European Geothermal Congress, a large conference full of academic, government and industry people involved in all elements of geothermal energy from policy, to technology, to cutting edge research.
We had been discussing presentations from that day and how a new, large-scale geothermal energy project at home could help to demonstrate the technology and reduce carbon emissions. We now needed to get something down on paper and figure out how it would all fit together. In front of us was appearing a very large, disorganised collection of words like ‘toolkits’, ‘resources maps’, ‘online platforms’ ‘best practice’, ‘data’ as well as people that we thought might use these, such as ‘policymakers’, ‘educators’, ‘geological surveys’, ‘businesses’, ‘planners’, ‘researchers’ etc. We began connecting the words to see what emerged.
The three of us, and colleagues in Geological Survey Ireland (GSI), the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland (GSNI) and Codema, had recently been discussing a large-scale project to demonstrate the potential contribution geothermal energy could make to decarbonising the heat sector. Previous work by GSI and GSNI and others had identified multiple gaps that needed to be filled before we could develop a sustainable geothermal energy sector on the island.
For example, neither jurisdiction had published policy or regulations in relation to deep geothermal (i.e. deeper than 500m and relevant for larger scale industrial, commercial and residential heating and cooling). Nor did either survey have comprehensive heat maps to help developers and installers assess their options. Planners and local authorities didn’t have the necessary information to be able to make decisions about managing this resource safely and sustainably, nor how to incorporate geothermal energy into their council energy plans. We needed economic assessments of geothermal energy, specifically for our island, and what kind of incentives or financial supports might be suitable to boost this sector.
Looking forward, if we were successful in filling these gaps, who was going to help roll it out? We had to consider apprenticeships, professional training and academic courses to build a cohort of skilled people to support the sector in the long term.
We were also conscious that you can have the most amazing technology, financial supports and highest quality data, but if you do not inform people about what you are doing and why, then you will not succeed in delivering impactful renewable energy solutions. Designing and facilitating open dialogue so that people feel free to engage, ask questions and participate in decision making would be a vital element of this project.
We set about sketching a map of what a large-scale demonstration project should include and what type of partners we would be required. We needed to be able to demonstrate to all kinds of stakeholders, and in a range of different scenarios, that geothermal energy is a clean, reliable, secure and (critically) a feasible option on the island of Ireland. We discussed the work already done by the two geological surveys, European colleagues and our own excellent researchers on the island (geologists, geophysicists, engineers, social and behavioural scientists, community engagement practices, policy experts etc) and how best to pull this all together.
As we spread the pages out in front of us, and tried to make sense of the word-spaghetti we had just created, we realised this was both exciting and intimidating in equal measure! But more importantly, delivering this project was essential if we were really going to make a contribution to our energy transition.
And so, there in a Berlin bar, the GEMINI project began to take shape…
Aoife is Managing Director of RML Ltd, a GEMINI partner.
