Geothermal Energy Use, Country Update for Italy

This paper presents an overview on the development of geothermal energy applications in Italy for the year 2018 for both electricity generation and thermal uses. Geothermal power plants are located in Tuscany, in the two “historical” areas of Larderello-Travale and Mount Amiata. Thermal energy applications are widespread over the whole Italian territory. To date, Enel Green Power is the only geo-electricity producer in Italy. On 2016, with an installed capacity of 915.5 MWe, the gross electricity generation reached about 6.3 billion kWh, which represented a new record of electricity produced from geothermal resource in Italy. At the end of 2018 no additional units were installed and the gross electricity generation was of about 6.1 billion kWh. As far as thermal uses are concerned, at the end of 2017 the total installed capacity amounted to 1424 MWth, with a corresponding heat energy use of 10915 TJ/y. The main share is held by the space heating sector (42% of the total energy, 52% of the overall installed capacity), followed by thermal balneology (32% in both values) and fish farming (18% and 9% namely). Agricultural applications, industrial processes and other minor uses together account for around 8% of the total geo-heat use. In the past 7 years the direct use of geothermal heat has registered a rise of 26% and 40% in terms of energy use and installed capacity respectively, with ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs) and district heating applications (DHs) being the most widespread technologies that have more than doubled their capacity since 2010