JICA’s Cooperation in Geothermal Development

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explain the main ideas behind JICA’s assistance in developing geothermal resources in developing countries. This paper discusses the main challenges that JICA’s assistance addresses with respect to geothermal development: (a) managing high resource development risks and (b) securing large upfront investment. Public institutions have an important role to play in order take up-front risks, diversify risks, and accumulate data on geothermal resources. If governments can improve capacity for conducting geological surveys, supervising drilling operations, and evaluating geothermal reservoirs, then the achievements in each of these areas can positively impact all geothermal development stakeholders. Geothermal development requires diverse and highly qualified human resources that need to be trained in theory and in practice over a long period of time. Therefore, geothermal development organizations must have long-term plans for developing their staffs’ capacities. Overseas training is effective, but regional, national, and in-house training programs need to be established in order to train a wide range of qualified professionals. Financial assistance and capacity development are both indispensable. Concessional financing for geothermal power plants is effective because more than half of the geothermal power’s generation cost is composed of capital cost. In this paper, JICA’s energy policy as well as its philosophy for geothermal development will be discussed. Then, a brief history of JICA’s over five decades of geothermal development assistance will be explained. Finally, JICA’s on-going and planned geothermal projects will be introduced.