Norway
Contracting Party: The Research Council of Norway (NFR)
Executive Committee Member: Jiri Muller, Institute for Energy Technology, Norway
Alternate Member: Carsten F. Sørlie, Equinor ASA, Norway
Norway is a young nation when it comes to utilization of geothermal energy, currently there is no electrical production from geothermal resources with use dominated by the widespread deployment of heat pumps. Data from 2020 identifies 1862 MWth of geothermal heat pump capacity supplying ~21 GJ per year of energy. There were ~2400 new geothermal heat pump systems installed during 2020.
Norway also has a few geothermal installations that use lower temperature fluids circulated from wells drilled to less than 1500m such as the installation to de-ice pavement areas at the Oslo Airport . There are preliminary plans for utilizing deep geothermal energy in a district heating scheme in in Ny Ålesund, a remote settlement in Artic Svalbard, replacing fossil fuels with geothermal energy.
The “Norwegian Centre for Geothermal Energy Research” (CGER) coordinates research and development for geothermal energy in Norway. The Centre’s mission is to facilitate the development of knowledge and technology to form a basis for commercial exploitation of geothermal energy in Norway and worldwide.
