,

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

Despite the postponement of the World Geothermal Congress 2020 to May 2021, the organisers have decided to host a WGC 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.

“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.

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)

Draft Agenda:

  • WGC2020 Organising Committee – Dr. Bjarni Pálsson & Hidda Thorsteinsson
  • Address by the President of Iceland, Guðni 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, Fríða 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.

/by

UNESCO Geothermal Project to be led by Colombia

We would like to share this fantastic news from our member AGEOCOL with the entire geothermal community:

Under the slogan “Earth Sciences for Society”, the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) of UNESCO announced last days the approval of the second version of the IGCP-636 project: Geothermal Resources for Energy Transition.

IGCP-636 is an international project of cooperation and scientific, technological and social innovation in the field of geothermal energy. The first version of the project worked under the title: “Unifying international research forces to unlock and strengthen geothermal exploitation of the Americas and Europe”.

From the present year 2020 and until the year 2024, the UNESCO IGCP-636 project will be led by Colombia through Dr. Daniela Blessent of the University of Medellin and current president of AGEOCOL.

The project team is joined by 21 organizations from 15 different countries. For Colombia, the Colombian Geological Survey (SGC), the Colombian Geothermal Association (AGEOCOL), the University of Medellin (UDEM), and the Colombian Section of WING (Women in Geothermal) will participate.

The main objective of the IGCP-636 project is to promote the use of geothermal resources as a sustainable energy product through

1) increasing the knowledge and understanding of deep geothermal systems
2) conduct outreach activities with focus groups and communities; and
3) promote the installation of geothermal heat pumps.

From AGEOCOL we happily share this great achievement, which we are sure will bring progress and learning to continue promoting the use of energy on our planet.

Thank you and happy day!

AGEOCOL Communications.

Proyecto UNESCO de geotermia será liderado por Colombia
/by
,

GEMex Final Conference

On 18-19 February 2020, the final conference of the European-Mexican cooperation GEMex Project took place at the GFZ. The coordinators of the project, Aída López-Hernández (Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, UMSNH) and David Bruhn (Helmholtz-Centre Potsdam, GFZ) welcomed 125 guests from 15 different countries. They were greeted not only by the administrative director of GFZ, Dr. Stefan Schwartze, but also by the Mexican Ambassador to Germany Rogelio Granguillhome Morfín.

During the two days of the conference, almost all project partners presented their results from 3.5 years of research on Enhanced Geothermal Systems and Superhot Geothermal Systems. Since the conference was open to the public, the 72 contributions were presented to interested stakeholders and the wider geothermal community as well as project partners from 30 different research institutions and geothermal associations.

The conference demonstrated the effort the consortium dedicates to the integration of results from the different disciplines of geology, geochemistry, geophysics and various modelling approaches in order to reach the two ultimate project goals. First, to better understand the superhot geothermal system in Los Humeros in order to propose a concept for the utilisation of this geothermal resource additional to the conventional resources. Second, to design a stimulation test in Acoculco in order to develop a concept for a first Engineered Geothermal System in Mexico.

The conference proceedings are online and the full conference contributions can be downloaded from the GEMex website.

Find more information about the project here: http://www.gemex-h2020.eu/index.php?lang=en

/by
,

Secure your seat in IGA Webinar “IT 101 (not only) for Geothermalists” (Apr 08, 20:30 CEST)

In this hike through the digital world, IGA Technical Director Gregor Rumberg will show the many facets of digital developments and how to utilize in many scales from personal to large business.
Topics (among others) will include an introduction to Information Systems and current trends, tools and security, and showcase the benefits of the implementation of concepts from Business Informatics to facilitate the activities of all Geothermal Stakeholders. 

/by
,

World Geothermal Congress has been postponed until May 21 – 26, 2021

Dear geothermal community,

It is with a heavy heart that we have to announce the postponement of the World Geothermal Congress 2020 in Reykjavik, Iceland, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, until next year.

This decision was taken after engaging with various stakeholders; geothermal associations, our sponsors and exhibitors and most importantly, after consulting with the relevant authorities in Iceland. Further to these discussions, it is foreseeable that the hosting of WGC 2020 this spring in Iceland would have been impossible.

As you are all aware, the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications have been grave and the escalation worldwide in recent weeks and days is very worrying. Both the Organising Committee of WGC 2020 and the International Geothermal Association (IGA) have been monitoring the situation and reviewing all available options. This decision now has not been an easy one, however the health and safety of everyone involved is our first priority.

The preparation for WGC 2020 has been ongoing for almost 6 years now, with thousands of geothermal colleagues; authors, reviewers, sponsors, exhibitors and of course all those already registered, contributing towards making WGC 2020 the largest World Geothermal Congress to date. We feel that by postponing rather than cancelling WGC 2020 outright, we are safeguarding all their hard work. The new date of May 21 – 26, 2021 in Reykjavik, Iceland, is the best solution we have at hand under these unprecedented circumstances. While setting the new date, we have had to account for various limitations such as the availability of Harpa, the Conference Centre, accommodation, religious holidays and of course avoiding conflict with other major geothermal events.

We will strive towards ensuring the Congress program will have only minimal revisions and all the speakers will retain their already allocated slots and all the sponsors and exhibitors will maintain their chosen locations in Harpa and all non-technical events will maintain their designated times and venues.

We sincerely hope that you understand our decision and continue to support WGC 2020 under the circumstances. We acknowledge that for some of you, the new date may not be ideal, but we hope you will be able to participate in the World Geothermal Congress in Iceland next year. The Organising Committee of the World Geothermal Congress is working hard to implement this postponement of WGC 2020 and will communicate with all concerned in due time to make these changes go as smooth as possible.

We will do our utmost to ensure that next year in Reykjavik will be the greatest World Geothermal Congress ever! And last but not least, the Organising Committee and the IGA send their heartfelt support to all those affected in one way or another by COVID-19.

With warm regards,

Alexander Richter
President IGA

Bjarni Pálsson
Chairman Organizing Committee

More information and Q&A:
https://www.wgc2020.com/postponement_of_wgc2020_faq/

/by

Additional seats for Webinar “Geothermal: State of Play”

Due to the high demand we added a few more seats to the Webinar “Geothermal: State of Play” on 26th March 2020. In case of interest we highly recommend to register as soon as possible, since there is no additional seat extension possible.

You can register here:

/by
,

Registration for new IGA Webinars open now

We added a new connector session and further webinars are currently planned! Please register to our newsletter in order to stay on top with our current online course programme.

Note: For the connector session “Geothermal State of Play” only a few free seats are still available!

No products found which match your selection.

Photo by Simon Abrams on Unsplash

/by

Job Vacancy: Geoscientist (f/m/d) – with a completed PhD –

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is looking for a geoscientist for the development of technical criteria and scenarios for heat supply and storage from deep geothermal energy. Further information can be found in the call for applications. The application deadline is 3.4.2020.

More information:
http://www.pse.kit.edu/karriere/joboffer.php?id=23976&language=en

/by

Final GSS-VET Conference concludes successfully in Athens

A two days meeting (13-14/2/2020) with the participation of interested stakeholders took place in Athens, as the GSS-VET project comes to its final stage.

Following the identification of skills needs, the scope of the GSS-VET project is to create an innovative training including work-based learning, ubiquitous learning and flipped classroom for geothermal and for solar energy system installers (EQF level 4-5). The training content is focused on technical skills but also on transversal ones, including interdisciplinary skills and ability to work effectively with people from other disciplines.

For the above an e-Learning Platform has been designed with corresponding digitalized contents. In the pilot phase which is currently running, dozens of trainers and hundreds of workers are trained, and thanks to the involvement of VET providers, sectorial organizations (including an EU umbrella), regional authorities and other associated partners, 2,500 workers will be trained by 2025.

During the first day of the Consortium meeting, there was an intensive programme including presentations about the market status and outlook as well as the training needs of the three markets covered by the project, i.e. Solar Thermal, Geothermal, and Photovoltaics. Two senior experts from the Greek Center for Renewable Energy Sources and Saving (CRES), namely Dr. Charalampos Malamatenios and Dr. Constantine Karytsas have given valuable insights for the two first markets respectively, while HELAPCO, a partner of the GSS project, has analysed the situation and trends of the PV market.

The agenda included presentations of the training material for all three technologies, a detailed presentation of the project e-platform and the Certification scheme for trainees, and concluded with a discussion on how training will continue after the end of the project. Following the current pilot phase of training, the e-platform will be open to anybody wanting to follow the courses online and be certified according to the standards set by the project.

The event was attended by various stakeholders including experts, academics from Greek Universities, people working in renewable energy markets, and/or energy providers, as well as representatives of environmental organisations and journalists.

More information about the project, as well as the presentations on RES markets status and outlook can be found at: http://gss-vet.eu/

/by

GreenDrinks Bonn March Mixer with regional Citizen Energy Coop on March 10th

WHAT: GreenDrinks Bonn March Meetup featuring Bürgerenergie Rhein-Sieg
WHEN: March, 10, 19-21.00hrs
WHERE: Rheinpavillon, Rathenau Ufer 1, 53113 Bonn, Germany
HOW: Walk, cycle, car-pool or use public transportation

SPECIAL GUEST: Thomas Schmitz, CEO of Bürger-Energie Rhein-Sieg e.G.

This month we’d like to focus again on #SDG7 (affordable & clean energy) and shine a light on a regional renewable energy transition player.

Across Germany, citizens have taken a direct stake in the transition to a cleaner energy supply through ownership of renewable energy installations. A common form are energy cooperatives like Bürger-Energie Rhein-Sieg. https://be-rhein-sieg.de/

The City of Bonn aims to be carbon neutral by 2035. HOW can we turn this goal together into reality? The initiative Bonn im Wandel recently submitted a citizen proposal to the City — Bonn4Future – Together for Climate — as a roadmapto to engage citizen partipation. https://bonnimwandel.de/bonn4future-wir-fuers-klima-buergerantrag/

GreenDrinks Bonn is a casual monthly mixer for everyone interested in green business and environmental issues and part of the international GreenDrinks network now active in more than 500 cities. www.greendrinks.org/bonn

Our goal is to bring together eco-friendly people and help shape a future that’s green and sustainable.and create a conversation where individuals can share ideas and opportunities, or gain support for a cause. We meet the second Tuesday of every month at 7 pm in different venues to support local business and Bonn’s growing sustainability eco-system.

/by