The President, Rosa Dávila, highlights the public-private initiative to advance the development of renewable energies on the island.
ITER and DISA will start surface explorations this year.
The Cabildo of Tenerife has hosted today (Tuesday 30) the presentation of the public-private initiative formed by the Technological Institute of Renewable Energies, an entity under the Island Corporation, and the DISA group, which has managed to capture 43,43.1 million euros of aid from the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE) for the development of geothermal energy on the island through the mining domains granted by the Government of the Canary Islands to both entities and which are linked to the volcanic-hydrothermal systems of Tenerife NWRZ, Tenerife NERZ and Tenerife NSRZ.
The event was attended by the president of the Cabildo, Rosa Dávila, the Minister of Innovation, Research and Development, Juan José Martínez; the director of DISA Renovables, Joaquín Gurriarán, and the director of the Environment Area of the Instituto Tecnológico de Energías Renovables (ITER) and scientific coordinator of INVOLCAN, Nemesio Pérez. The geothermal research linked to the Tenerife NERZ volcanic-hydrothermal system will be partially developed in the municipalities of Arico, Fasnia and La Orotava. In the case of Tenerife NWRZ it will be partially carried out in the municipalities of Buenavista del Norte, Garachico, Guía de Isora, Icod de los Vinos, Santiago del Teide, Los Silos and El Tanque, while the geothermal research work in the Tenerife NSRZ volcanic-hydrothermal system will be concentrated in the municipalities of Adeje, Arona, Granadilla, San Miguel and Vilaflor.
The president of the Cabildo, Rosa DávilaHe pointed out that it is “a bet for the future of Tenerife in our goal of achieving 100% renewable energies. I want to highlight the commitment of the Cabildo, through ITER and also the work done by Involcan, and DISA in this public-private initiative that could be a breakthrough for the island. This would allow us to increase our energy sovereignty, while reducing our energy bill. We have the obligation to explore the resources in our territory and that is what we are going to do in the coming months”.
For his part, Joaquín Gurriarán, said he felt “excited to move forward in this alliance with the Cabildo” and said that “DISA has been committed to energy for 90 years and has been evolving, first with the commitment to photovoltaic and wind and now we do with geothermal energy, which is a clean, affordable and sustainable energy. In that sense, he thanked the effort of ITER and DISA staff for obtaining the resources from IDAE to carry out the work and indicated that an Icelandic group will join the project to contribute with their knowledge and experience.
Juan José Martínez indicated that “this is an investment of 43.1 million euros, but it could double to 86 million euros in the development of the projects. Throughout this year we will carry out a geothermal exploration on the surface and from 2025 we plan to explore in depth with several boreholes. We are talking about a stable and available resource, since geothermal energy is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and has a predictable yield”. He also pointed out that it is an energy that does not consume much land and that its environmental footprint is much smaller than that of other energy sources.
Finally, Nemesio Pérez reminded that geothermal research in the Canary Islands is a step ahead compared to the rest of the geothermal research in the rest of the national territory. This has been developed mainly through R+D+i projects that have been led by ITER and the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands (Involcan) during the last 13 years.
On the geothermal projects of the Cabildo and DISA, Perez said that “this is like a soccer game that you have to play. If you don’t play it, you don’t know if you win or lose. We are talking about a renewable and economic resource under our feet that takes advantage of the internal heat stored in the earth’s crust to produce heat and electricity in a sustainable way. Geothermal energy operates continuously to meet the minimum level of energy demand and can be adapted to meet varying levels of energy demand.”
Geothermal energy is defined as “energy stored in the form of heat beneath the earth’s surface; within the earth’s crust”. Geothermal resources are found at various depths (from hundreds of meters to several kilometers) and can be used to generate both thermal and electrical energy depending on their temperature. Deep or high temperature geothermal energy is associated with thermal anomalies in the earth’s crust where the geothermal gradient instead of being the normal one (30 °C/km) is much higher, up to 200 °C/km. These anomalies are usually mainly linked to volcanically and tectonically active areas.
Once the possible existence of a geothermal resource in the subsoil has been identified, after a detailed surface investigation and exploration, deep boreholes are drilled until the geothermal reservoir is reached. Once the resource is found, it is exploited in thermoelectric power plants in which the extracted steam is injected into a turbine to generate electricity that is exported to the power grid, providing stability to the electrical system as a green base load. By being able to control the production of the geothermal resource at all times and being plants with a high capacity factor (above 90%), geothermal electricity becomes a great renewable ally of the electricity system, a role that is especially strategic in island territories as it can act as a renewable backup for the rest of the interruptible renewables (photovoltaic, wind) and thus facilitate the evolution of the islands towards a 100% renewable energy mix.
Geothermal energy differs from other renewables mainly because of the uncertainty associated with the identification of the geothermal resource in the initial phase of the projects. However, once the resource has been found, it has been verified that its exploitation is technically and economically feasible and a geothermal power plant is commissioned, the cost of the electricity generated is one of the most competitive of all renewables (LCOE between 0.04 – 0.07 €/kWh) according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). These two differential factors highlight the importance of developing mechanisms to facilitate the mitigation of this initial risk, as has been done in other European countries where geothermal energy is being successfully implemented.
The geothermal potential in Spain is similar or even higher than in neighboring countries, but at present Spain has a zero level of development of geoelectricity while Germany, France and Portugal have an installed geothermal capacity for electricity generation of 40, 16 and 29 MW respectively in 2021, largely installed in the island territories of these countries. In the vision document of the Spanish Technological and Innovation Platform in Geothermal Energy (Geoplat) published in 2010, it was estimated an electricity generation potential for the Canary Islands in the 2020 horizon of 255 MW of installed capacity. The impact of this development would induce energy benefits by contributing to decarbonizing the mix and reducing the high extra-peninsular energy costs. In addition to inducing important environmental benefits by replacing fossil power plants and, most importantly, it would induce socioeconomic benefits in the territories by making investments that would imply the generation and maintenance of jobs.
Press conference on geothermal projects to be developed on the island of Tenerife (January 30, 2024)
Recording of the press conference, held on January 30, 2024 in the Cabildo of Tenerife, about the geothermal projects to be developed on the island of Tenerife, with the presence of the President of the Cabildo, Rosa Elena Dávila Mamely; the Councilor for Innovation, Research and Development, Juan José Martínez Díaz; the Director of DISA Renovables, Joaquín Gurriarán; the Director of the Environment Area of ITER – Instituto Tecnológico y de Energías Renovables, S.A., Nemesio Pérez; and Begoña Ortiz, the CEO of ITER.
