France finalizes action plan for geothermal sector development
Cover page of "Geothermal energy: an action plan to accelerate development", December 2023 (source: Ministerie de la Transition Energetique)
Carlo Cariaga
2 Jan 2024
France's Ministry of Energy Transition has published a geothermal development action plan outlining 27 priority actions along 8 main areas
France’s Ministry of Energy Transition has officially published the finalized action plan to accelerate the development of the geothermal energy sector. The finalized action plan was published on 22 December 2023, following a first version that had been published in February 2023. The official launch was headed by Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
The new action plan supports the deployment of geothermal energy to meet the needs for renewable heating and cooling for individual and collective buildings in Mainland France. The French Association of Geothermal Professionals (AFPG) has expressed support for the action plan, citing how it had been co-developed with all the players in the sector and that it will be deployed alongside the French Agency for Ecological Transition (ADEME) with a committee of public and private stakeholders which will meet regularly.
The full action plan can be accessed via this link.
Heat represents around half of the final energy consumption in mainland France and is still mainly produced by the combustion of fossil fuels. In 2021, renewable energies represented around 24% of the gross final energy consumption of heating and cooling, with geothermal solutions representing only 1% of final heat consumption (around 6 TWh of geothermal heat) and 5% of the energy entering heating networks (around 2 TWh) in mainland France.
In the context of increasing the share of renewable energies to 38% of the final heat consumption by 2030, the Government of France has launched an ambitious action plan that aims to accelerate the development of surface and deep geothermal energy in mainland France.
The new action plan is made up of 27 priority actions and 23 complementary actions aligned to the following 8 axes:
- Strengthen surface geothermal drilling capacities to meet demand from the residential and tertiary sectors
- Refine the regulatory framework to encourage the development of surface geothermal projects
- Encourage the installation of geothermal heat pumps in the residential and tertiary sectors
- Identify and develop underexploited deep aquifers, suitable for creating geothermal doublets for heating networks
- Raise awareness and increase the skills of local stakeholders, support project leaders in the deployment of geothermal solutions
- Encourage new projects and encourage new financial arrangements in geothermal energy
- Developing geothermal energy overseas
- Develop the French geothermal export market
Source: AFPG
