IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v173y2023ics0301421522005973.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The role of regulation in geothermal energy in the UK

Author

Listed:
  • McClean, A.
  • Pedersen, O.W.

Abstract

Geothermal energy is a constant, reliable source of energy which has the potential to play a key role in decarbonisation of the heating of buildings in the UK. At present it is underutilized, making up just 4.5 per cent of renewable energy used in the UK, and a significant reason for this is the lack of clear regulatory framework for addressing the environmental impacts and supporting private investment. This article identifies the environmental and financial risks of both shallow and deep geothermal energy and analyses if, how, and to what extent they are addressed in the current regulatory regime. It finds that regulation of the environmental impacts is piecemeal and recommends reform of the regulatory regime to cover all geothermal energy systems and operations. This article also finds that the current regulatory framework fails to address the significant upfront costs of both shallow and deep geothermal energy operations or the potential for depletion of the geothermal resource on which they depend. It highlights the need for a regulatory regime that protects geothermal energy resources from overabstraction and balances the interests of multiple users, and for financial incentives to encourage growth of both the shallow and deep geothermal energy industries.

Suggested Citation

  • McClean, A. & Pedersen, O.W., 2023. "The role of regulation in geothermal energy in the UK," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:173:y:2023:i:c:s0301421522005973
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113378
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421522005973
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113378?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. García-Gil, Alejandro & Goetzl, Gregor & Kłonowski, Maciej R. & Borovic, Staša & Boon, David P. & Abesser, Corinna & Janza, Mitja & Herms, Ignasi & Petitclerc, Estelle & Erlström, Mikael & Holecek, Ja, 2020. "Governance of shallow geothermal energy resources," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    2. Alejandro García-Gil & Miguel Mejías Moreno & Eduardo Garrido Schneider & Miguel Ángel Marazuela & Corinna Abesser & Jesús Mateo Lázaro & José Ángel Sánchez Navarro, 2020. "Nested Shallow Geothermal Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-13, June.
    3. Shortall, Ruth & Davidsdottir, Brynhildur & Axelsson, Guðni, 2015. "Geothermal energy for sustainable development: A review of sustainability impacts and assessment frameworks," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 391-406.
    4. Kubota, Hiromi & Hondo, Hiroki & Hienuki, Shunichi & Kaieda, Hideshi, 2013. "Determining barriers to developing geothermal power generation in Japan: Societal acceptance by stakeholders involved in hot springs," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1079-1087.
    5. Brunekreeft, Gert, 2015. "Network unbundling and flawed coordination: Experience from the electricity sector," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 11-18.
    6. Lu, Qi & Narsilio, Guillermo A. & Aditya, Gregorius Riyan & Johnston, Ian W., 2017. "Economic analysis of vertical ground source heat pump systems in Melbourne," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 107-117.
    7. Bolton, Ronan & Foxon, Timothy J., 2015. "Infrastructure transformation as a socio-technical process — Implications for the governance of energy distribution networks in the UK," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 90(PB), pages 538-550.
    8. Barbier, Enrico, 2002. "Geothermal energy technology and current status: an overview," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 3-65.
    9. O'Sullivan, Michael & Gravatt, Michael & Popineau, Joris & O'Sullivan, John & Mannington, Warren & McDowell, Julian, 2021. "Carbon dioxide emissions from geothermal power plants," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 990-1000.
    10. Tsagarakis, Konstantinos P. & Efthymiou, Loukia & Michopoulos, Apostolos & Mavragani, Amaryllis & Anđelković, Aleksandar S. & Antolini, Francesco & Bacic, Mario & Bajare, Diana & Baralis, Matteo & Bog, 2020. "A review of the legal framework in shallow geothermal energy in selected European countries: Need for guidelines," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 147(P2), pages 2556-2571.
    11. Malafeh, Sam & Sharp, Basil, 2015. "Role of royalties in sustainable geothermal energy development," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 235-242.
    12. Bleicher, Alena & Gross, Matthias, 2016. "Geothermal heat pumps and the vagaries of subterranean geology: Energy independence at a household level as a real world experiment," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 279-288.
    13. Cui, Yuanlong & Zhu, Jie & Zoras, Stamatis & Qiao, Yaning & Zhang, Xin, 2020. "Energy performance and life cycle cost assessments of a photovoltaic/thermal assisted heat pump system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    14. Saner, Dominik & Juraske, Ronnie & Kübert, Markus & Blum, Philipp & Hellweg, Stefanie & Bayer, Peter, 2010. "Is it only CO2 that matters? A life cycle perspective on shallow geothermal systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(7), pages 1798-1813, September.
    15. Haehnlein, Stefanie & Bayer, Peter & Blum, Philipp, 2010. "International legal status of the use of shallow geothermal energy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(9), pages 2611-2625, December.
    16. Bayer, Peter & Saner, Dominik & Bolay, Stephan & Rybach, Ladislaus & Blum, Philipp, 2012. "Greenhouse gas emission savings of ground source heat pump systems in Europe: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 1256-1267.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luis F. Villalón-López & Víctor M. Ambriz-Díaz & Carlos Rubio-Maya & Oscar Chávez & Israel Y. Rosas, 2024. "Energy, Exergy, Exergoeconomic Analysis, and Optimization in a Natural Gas Decompression Station with a Vortex Tube and Geothermal Preheating," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(4), pages 1-33, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bayer, Peter & Attard, Guillaume & Blum, Philipp & Menberg, Kathrin, 2019. "The geothermal potential of cities," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 17-30.
    2. Pan, Shu-Yuan & Gao, Mengyao & Shah, Kinjal J. & Zheng, Jianming & Pei, Si-Lu & Chiang, Pen-Chi, 2019. "Establishment of enhanced geothermal energy utilization plans: Barriers and strategies," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 19-32.
    3. Zhang, Tiansheng & Liu, Chun & Bayer, Peter & Zhang, Liwei & Gong, Xulong & Gu, Kai & Shi, Bin, 2022. "City-wide monitoring and contributing factors to shallow subsurface temperature variability in Nanjing, China," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 1105-1115.
    4. Somogyi, Viola & Sebestyén, Viktor & Nagy, Georgina, 2017. "Scientific achievements and regulation of shallow geothermal systems in six European countries – A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 68(P2), pages 934-952.
    5. Santamarta, Juan C. & García-Gil, Alejandro & Expósito, María del Cristo & Casañas, Elías & Cruz-Pérez, Noelia & Rodríguez-Martín, Jesica & Mejías-Moreno, Miguel & Götzl, Gregor & Gemeni, Vasiliki, 2021. "The clean energy transition of heating and cooling in touristic infrastructures using shallow geothermal energy in the Canary Islands," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 505-515.
    6. Cho, Sangmin & Kim, Jinsoo & Heo, Eunnyeong, 2015. "Application of fuzzy analytic hierarchy process to select the optimal heating facility for Korean horticulture and stockbreeding sectors," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 1075-1083.
    7. García-Gil, Alejandro & Goetzl, Gregor & Kłonowski, Maciej R. & Borovic, Staša & Boon, David P. & Abesser, Corinna & Janza, Mitja & Herms, Ignasi & Petitclerc, Estelle & Erlström, Mikael & Holecek, Ja, 2020. "Governance of shallow geothermal energy resources," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    8. Karytsas, Spyridon & Choropanitis, Ioannis, 2017. "Barriers against and actions towards renewable energy technologies diffusion: A Principal Component Analysis for residential ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 252-271.
    9. Rivera, Jaime A. & Blum, Philipp & Bayer, Peter, 2015. "Analytical simulation of groundwater flow and land surface effects on thermal plumes of borehole heat exchangers," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 421-433.
    10. Hu, Jinzhong, 2017. "An improved analytical model for vertical borehole ground heat exchanger with multiple-layer substrates and groundwater flow," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 537-549.
    11. Majuri, Pirjo & Arola, Teppo & Kumpula, Anne & Vuorisalo, Timo, 2021. "Geoenergy permits in Finnish regional administration – Contradictory practices and inadequate judicial regulation," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 151-159.
    12. Yong Jiang & Yalin Lei & Li Li & Jianping Ge, 2016. "Mechanism of Fiscal and Taxation Policies in the Geothermal Industry in China," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-20, September.
    13. Hähnlein, Stefanie & Bayer, Peter & Ferguson, Grant & Blum, Philipp, 2013. "Sustainability and policy for the thermal use of shallow geothermal energy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 914-925.
    14. Blum, Philipp & Campillo, Gisela & Kölbel, Thomas, 2011. "Techno-economic and spatial analysis of vertical ground source heat pump systems in Germany," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 3002-3011.
    15. Halilovic, Smajil & Böttcher, Fabian & Zosseder, Kai & Hamacher, Thomas, 2023. "Optimizing the spatial arrangement of groundwater heat pumps and their well locations," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    16. Soltani, M. & Moradi Kashkooli, Farshad & Souri, Mohammad & Rafiei, Behnam & Jabarifar, Mohammad & Gharali, Kobra & Nathwani, Jatin S., 2021. "Environmental, economic, and social impacts of geothermal energy systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    17. Manon Bulté & Thierry Duren & Olivier Bouhon & Estelle Petitclerc & Mathieu Agniel & Alain Dassargues, 2021. "Numerical Modeling of the Interference of Thermally Unbalanced Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage Systems in Brussels (Belgium)," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-17, September.
    18. Antonio Novelli & Valentina D’Alonzo & Simon Pezzutto & Rubén Aarón Estrada Poggio & Alessandro Casasso & Pietro Zambelli, 2021. "A Spatially-Explicit Economic and Financial Assessment of Closed-Loop Ground-Source Geothermal Heat Pumps: A Case Study for the Residential Buildings of Valle d’Aosta Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-22, November.
    19. Bayer, Peter & Rybach, Ladislaus & Blum, Philipp & Brauchler, Ralf, 2013. "Review on life cycle environmental effects of geothermal power generation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 446-463.
    20. Rivera, Jaime A. & Blum, Philipp & Bayer, Peter, 2015. "Ground energy balance for borehole heat exchangers: Vertical fluxes, groundwater and storage," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 1341-1351.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:173:y:2023:i:c:s0301421522005973. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.