The National News
Summary
This energy source is low-carbon, is reliably available day-round without varying with weather or seasons, is geographically widespread, reasonably cost-effective, does not require scarce materials and makes use of well-known technologies.
Yet it ranks only fifth in capacity among the renewables, far behind solar, wind, hydropower and bioenergy. As Masdar and Adnoc now show interest, is it time for geothermal to come to the boil?
The role of geothermal today is tiny: in the US, which has the world’s largest geothermal capacity, it is still only 0.3 per cent of total installed electricity generation.
Maybe that is about to change.
In February, Abu Dhabi’s green energy company Masdar made a strategic investment in Pertamina Geothermal, a unit of the Indonesian state oil corporation, which raised $595 million in an initial public offering for a quarter of its shares. Pertamina Geothermal intends to invest $4 billion to double its capacity by 2027-2028.
And in March, Masdar agreed with Adnoc Drilling to explore geothermal opportunities, with the Adnoc unit potentially providing drilling services.
In 2021, Dubai-based district cooling company Tabreed also agreed to work on two deep geothermal wells at Masdar City.
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