Czech Republic Country Update 2018

Abstract

There has been no significant progress in the geothermal energy use in the Czech Republic in recent years. There is no working geothermal power plant, nor direct heat utilization from the deep geothermal sources. In the long run, there are two commercial projects to build a geothermal power plant. However, realization of the projects cannot be anticipated soon, due to missing government support and low purchase prices for electricity from geothermal sources. The main success in the field of deep geothermal energy during the last years is a construction of a new research centre in the town of Litomerice, 70 km to the north of Prague. The Research Infrastructure for Geothermal Energy (RINGEN) groups together several scientific institutions across the Czech Republic, and one of its main objectives is to verify the possibilities of building a deep geothermal heat exchanger in the environment of metamorphic rocks. In the Czech Republic, there is a year-on-year increase in the number of heat pump installations, but this trend is mainly done by new Air - Water pumps. The installation of the Ground – Water heat pumps has been stagnating for several years due to the high costs of ground or drilling works and moderate winters in recent years that make the Air – Water pumps quite effective for most of the heating season.