IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v15y2022i3p1029-d738349.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Enjoying the Heat? Co-Creation of Stakeholder Benefits and Sustainable Energy Development within Projects in the Geothermal Sector

Author

Listed:
  • David Cook

    (Environment and Natural Resources, Faculty of Economics, University of Iceland, Gimli, Sæmundargötu 2, 102 Reykjavík, Iceland)

  • Ingibjörg Karlsdóttir

    (Faculty of Business Administration, University of Iceland, Gimli, Sæmundargötu 2, 102 Reykjavík, Iceland)

  • Inga Minelgaite

    (Faculty of Business Administration, University of Iceland, Gimli, Sæmundargötu 2, 102 Reykjavík, Iceland)

Abstract

Analysis of the sustainability implications of the geothermal industry has tended to take a high-level or systemic overview of national performance rather than deeper, stakeholder-focused investigations. This study seeks to begin to fill this gap in the literature, investigating the following research question: how do projects in the Icelandic geothermal energy sector create co-benefits with stakeholders and reflect the integration of sustainable energy development (SED)? The focus of the analysis is identifying the stakeholders, what the sustainability benefits co-created with stakeholders are, and when in the projects’ life-cycle do these occur. Based on eleven semi-structured interviews with project managers in Iceland’s geothermal industry, the study identifies an array of stakeholders in the sector, including national and municipal governments, public sector institutions, businesses, the public, employees, and landowners. The sustainability co-benefits of Iceland’s geothermal power projects are broad and cut across all six aspects of SED and multiple phases of the project life-cycle. Although the sustainability benefits are apparent, trade-offs are reported between pursuing an economically efficient energy system and nature conservation. This relates to unsustainable utilization of the resources and the environmental externalities of power production and consumption. Efforts to mitigate these effects are ongoing, and further pursuit of SED is likely in Iceland given its recognition within the nation’s new energy policy and to meet ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets in the government’s climate action plan. These are prominent issues in other nations seeking to decarbonize energy systems through increased utilization of geothermal resources.

Suggested Citation

  • David Cook & Ingibjörg Karlsdóttir & Inga Minelgaite, 2022. "Enjoying the Heat? Co-Creation of Stakeholder Benefits and Sustainable Energy Development within Projects in the Geothermal Sector," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-21, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:3:p:1029-:d:738349
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/3/1029/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/3/1029/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alexey Mikhaylov, 2020. "Geothermal Energy Development in Iceland," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 10(4), pages 31-35.
    2. Palomo-Torrejón, Elisabet & Colmenar-Santos, Antonio & Rosales-Asensio, Enrique & Mur-Pérez, Francisco, 2021. "Economic and environmental benefits of geothermal energy in industrial processes," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 134-146.
    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. David Cook & Brynhildur Davíðsdóttir & Ingunn Gunnarsdóttir, 2022. "A Conceptual Exploration of How the Pursuit of Sustainable Energy Development Is Implicit in the Genuine Progress Indicator," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-23, March.

    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. Rauan Meirbekova & Dario Bonciani & Dagur Ingi Olafsson & Aysun Korucan & Pinar Derin-Güre & Virginie Harcouët-Menou & Wilfried Bero, 2024. "Opportunities and Challenges of Geothermal Energy: A Comparative Analysis of Three European Cases—Belgium, Iceland, and Italy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-27, August.
    2. Xia, Z.H. & Jia, G.S. & Ma, Z.D. & Wang, J.W. & Zhang, Y.P. & Jin, L.W., 2021. "Analysis of economy, thermal efficiency and environmental impact of geothermal heating system based on life cycle assessments," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 303(C).
    3. Arciuolo, Thomas F. & Faezipour, Miad, 2022. "Yellowstone Caldera Volcanic Power Generation Facility: A new engineering approach for harvesting emission-free green volcanic energy on a national scale," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 415-425.
    4. Pavel Baboshkin, 2020. "Strategic Energy Partnership between Russia and China," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 10(5), pages 158-163.
    5. Zhou, Zongming & Cao, Yan & Anqi, Ali E. & Zoghi, Mohammad & Habibi, Hamed & Rajhi, Ali A. & Alamri, Sagr, 2022. "Converting a geothermal-driven steam flash cycle into a high-performance polygeneration system by waste heat recovery: 3E analysis and Genetic-Fgoalattain optimization," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 609-627.
    6. Xia, Zhenhua & Qin, Siyu & Tao, Zeyu & Jia, Guosheng & Cheng, Chonghua & Jin, Liwen, 2023. "Multi-factor optimization of thermo-economic performance of coaxial borehole heat exchanger geothermal system based on Levelized Cost of Energy analysis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 219(P2).
    7. Thomas Burkhardt & Diana Stepanova & Leonid Ratkin & Ismail Ismailov & Oleg Lavrushin & Natalia Sokolinskaya & Mir Sayed Shah Danish & Tomonobu Senjyu & Serhat Yuksel & Hasan Dincer, 2021. "Introduction of Biofuels as a Way of Solving Ecological Problems," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 11(2), pages 187-193.

    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:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:3:p:1029-:d:738349. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.