GEORISK: Developing Geothermal Projects By Mitigating Risks

Geothermal project development has several risky components, the most important one being the resource risk. Until the first borehole has been drilled into the geothermal reservoir, developers cannot be sure about the exact parameters (temperature and flow rate) of the planned geothermal electricity or h&c project.

Risk insurance Funds for the geological risk already exist in some European countries (France, Germany, Iceland, The Netherlands, Denmark, Flanders in Belgium and Switzerland). However, such Funds have been not existing in several countries prospective for geothermal deployment (including eg. Greece, Hungary, Poland).

The establishment of such risk mitigation scheme all over the world to cover the exploration phase and the first drilling (test) is key for a large development of deep geothermal. But it appears clear that a risk mitigation scheme must be designed, especially the involvement of private financers, according to the market maturity of the sector in each country and region.

The GEORISK project, which started in October 2018 for 30 months, aims at establishing such risk insurance schemes all over Europe and in some key target third countries to cover the resource and the technical risks.