CY Cergy Paris University (CYU, France) and the University of Neuchâtel (UniNE, Switzerland) are co-organising the 12th edition of the European Geothermal PhD Days (EGPD), which will take place virtually on 15-16th February 2021.

The theme is “Geothermics in a critically stressed crust”.

The following sessions will take place:
        – Session 1: Reservoir geomechanics and reservoir management.
        – Session 2: Earthquake mechanics.
        – Session 3: Faults characteristics and properties.
        – Session 4: Modelling of geothermal processes.

The deadline for abstracts submission is 30th November 2020 and the deadline for registration is 31st December 2020.

All necessary information is available on the website here.

The Utah Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE), funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, has recently announced that the drilling of its first highly deviated deep well has commenced. Highly deviated wells are frequently drilled for oil and gas production, but not by the geothermal industry. So, the Utah FORGE team will be the first to tackle this challenge while drilling in hot, hard crystalline granite.

Read the full press release below.

New collaborations and contributions to the development of geothermal energy in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has produced a new publication on geothermal potential. The document summarizes the main actions and key initiatives in the region in geothermal energy since 2018 and includes a summary organized by country, containing policy and regulatory framework recommendations which are the result of regional dialogues seeking to promote and develop geothermal energy.

Access the publication in English here.

Access the publication in Spanish here.

The new Geofutures Greeninvest project website has been launched.

The GeoFutures Facility is an insurance-based risk finance fund that will crowd-in international and national private sector investment into the geothermal power sector in East Africa (the “GeoFutures Facility”), with an initial focus on Kenya and Ethiopia.

GreenInvest is a grant funded initiative arising from Parhelion’s work to further develop innovative insurance products to facilitate the financing of climate sustainable enterprises.

Read about the work we do and find out more about our key partners here.

Dear Geothermal Community,

Our Geothermal Young Talents require your help. Today, we kindly ask you for your support for Javiera Chocobar, Master student in Geothermal Systems at the Hochschule Bochum (HSB), Germany and invite you to take a questionnaire, available at the following link:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScXef6weKfixtT2EYM0STTICR89BLFQzvU2vSsIWWpDzYFkJg/viewform?usp=pp_url

Please find additional information below.

Thank you for your support!

My master’s thesis focuses on determining the social aspects of geothermal exploration considered within the Plays-based geothermal exploration method proposed by Moeck et. al., (2019). This method of geothermal exploration is adapted from the oil and gas industry and is structured as follows: First, it considers that the geothermal resource assessment process begins at the geosystem scale from what is called the “basin approach”. It then follows the “Plays approach” at the regional level and ends with the “prospect approach” at the local level. Finally, all these approaches (or steps) are organized in a sequence that is represented by two inverted pyramids (Moeck et. al., 2020).

My master’s thesis will focus on determining the factors that must be considered in each dimension of the socio-economic-technical approach. For this reason, I am sharing a questionnaire with you. It will enable me to gather important information, which you will be able to provide me with as an expert in the field and thus achieve the objective of establishing the technical and socioeconomic factors in geothermal exploration based on plays.

Javiera Chocobar

The Geothermal Resources Council announced today at their annual meeting, that it has rebranded as Geothermal Rising.
The IGA congratulates its member with the new branding and looks forward to the new brand website, expected to occur in mid-Q1 2021.
The full press release can be found here:

https://mcusercontent.com/6fe4488c7728f34c46bba4588/files/4834c5ed-3300-47ad-9c84-6c299c4ecac5/Geothermal_Rising_Press_Release_Brand_Announcement_Final_1_.pdf

In this newspiece we would like to share with you the updates on MEET Project.

The MEET Project (Multidisciplinary and multi-context demonstration of Enhanced Geothermal Systems exploration and Exploitation Techniques and potentials) aims at boosting the development of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) across Europe in various geological contexts (sedimentary, volcanic, metamorphic and crystalline) by different means.

Read about their latest updates here.

The NGAP Webinar series spans over 3 days (October 7, 14, 21) of mini-conference (2 hrs each day) where latest topics on Digital Applications, Operational Challenges and Drilling are presented by colleagues from the Geothermal industry in the Philippines and New Zealand.


Learn how supervised machine learning helps in well output estimation, advances in online scale dissolution reduces injection wells downtime, and drilling benchmarking and technologies reduce drilling costs.

7 October, Webinar “Digital”: https://nzte.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Yn7eRM_RR6Kds_wHKYrbuQ

14 October, Webinar “Operational Challenges”: https://nzte.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_sonO4cGYT2W7MoExLcQI8Q

21 October, Webinar “Drilling”: https://nzte.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_OOT8_0s4TiiZeVRA409eyw

28 October, General Assembly Meeting: https://nzte.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_AIL8pYjHQ5GusuScN1pMjg

Parhelion is an energy and climate risk finance company specialising in non-traditional risk issues impacting investment in to clean energy and climate finance markets. Parhelion has developed a Geothermal Resource Risk Insurance that covers a pre-determined number of wells with a pre-agreed drilling and testing schedule. It is designed to be flexible to an individual project’s needs.

We invite yout to participate in the IGC webinar “Risk finance for geothermal resource development” that takes place on 4 September 2020. Julian Richardson (Parhelion) and Alexander Richter (Thinkgeoenergy) will discuss the company’s efforts to insure geothermal projects and climate finance.

More information here: https://www.igc.events/en.

The Geothermal Resource Council 2020 Annual Meeting & Expo is going fully virtual.

The meeting will take place October 18 – 23, 2020 in an online, on-demand format that will allow attendees from around the globe to access the meeting’s robust technical program and network with other attendees and companies.

For details, read the latest letter from the GRC President and Executive Director here.