Worldwide Flavor: India, Ireland take first steps; Philippine company charging ahead; and Switzerland not giving in

We’ve spent many a byte on projects around the world, and most of the players a re well known. In recent weeks we’ve added more from New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines. But this week, two items came to our attention from India, Ireland and Switzerland. And we had to add the latest from the Philippines, as Energy Development Corp. (EDC) seems hell-bent to become the world’s largest geothermal energy producer, period. It wants to not reach, but add 300 MW of capacity in three to five years.

In all cases, one central theme carries the day – government backing.

This is not literally true in EDC’s case. As a part of financial powerhouse Lopez Group, the company has raised plenty of capital on its own, as we’ve reported here. However, it has benefited from policy, as the country’s Department of Energy continues to award new geothermal concessions nearly as fast as they can be picked up by developers.

If EDC can add the 300 megawatts MW, it would be the world’s largest producer of geothermal energy – assuming other don’t take up the challenge. The company’s concession areas are in Dumaguete, Negros Oriental, Mt. Apo, Southern Leyte and in Legaspi/Sorsogon, and the company expects these areas hold another 200 MW in potential beyond the current target.

In Switzerland, the failure of the Basel enhanced geothermal system project rocked more than just the city – clearly too close to the project as the image shows. Repercussions were felt worldwide. But this has not stopped the Swiss from moving forward, albeit slowly.

Interestingly, the country claims to have the largest number of borehole heat exchangers in the world, and their numbers have more than doubled since 2005. Thus Switzerland’s interest in taking the next step into electricity generation. It will, however have to go deep, as there are no surface or near surface resources.

Despite the setback at Basel, Geneva is still planning a plant on the EGS principle. Here, however, there a few government resources to draw from. In 2008, only $1.45 million was allocated to geothermal research by the Swiss Energy Office. To make up for this in part, the Neuchâtel Geothermal Research Centre, in conjunction with Neuchâtel University, is offering Europe’s first full-scale course in the field that it hopes will attract researchers from all over the continent.

In India, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy will get a budget increase of 61%. This has energy and environment solutions’ provider Thermax looking to tap those incentives through solar, biomass and geothermal sources of energy projects. Unfortunately, their geothermal projects will not produce electricity, but rather provide heating and cooling through ground source heat pumps. Current incentives will substantially reduce the cost to initiate a ground source project, which may be a necessary step in geothermal development in a country with no experience whatsoever in the energy source.

In the meantime, India’s Tata Power Co. is said to be considering a bid to develop a geothermal power project in Indonesia in association with Origin Energy Ltd., an Australian electricity and gas retailer. It may be some time but look for Tata to take what it learns overseas back home.

And finally on to Ireland, where the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change has tossed the town of Ballymena over $750,000 to be the first in the country to heat (eventually) every building using local hot water resources. The district heating scheme will pipe water heated by the resource through a heat exchange process, through the town in a network of pipes, and passing through another heat exchanger in each house.

In contrast to ongoing work in the Philippines, what we’re seeing in many of these regions are the first steps to tapping the earth’s natural heat. As each gets comfortable with using this aspect of the technology, power generation is the next natural step.