No names specified (2016)
Impact of policy instruments on the development of the Belgian geothermal energy sector (ALPI project)
.
Finance is one of the main critical issues for the
development of a low carbon society especially during
times of economic recession. Closing this green
investment gap will require policy intervention. The
ALPI project will concentrate on analysing and
designing relevant instruments to accelerate the
transition towards a low carbon society. Five case
studies were set-up to cover different economic
sectors (electricity, housing, transport, green public
procurement and geothermal energy), with a common
methodology.
As a showcase of emerging technologies in Belgium,
the Hasselt University and the Geological Survey of
Belgium are investigating the regional potential for
geothermal electricity production. Deep geothermal
energy appears to be currently on the edge of a takeoff. But the actual emergence of this technology is
subject to developments in legislation and incentives
from regional governments. Different risk/return
expectations across stages of the investment
continuum exist and the financial structures that are
employed at each stage may require different types of
public support.
The investigation starts with a broad stakeholder
consultation (policy makers, sector federations,
industry, researchers, banking sector, investors, etc.).
A techno-economic evaluation then is realized by real
options valuation. As the development of deep
geothermal energy is a complex process, a detailed
stochastic calculation is made of a project decision
tree. The decision tree replicates the consequent
development of different deep geothermal energy
projects, with their different success rates and
interdependencies in terms of technological
knowledge accumulation, decreasing uncertainty for
single basins, and increasing public acceptance.
This approach allows to investigate measures, such as
insurances or government guaranteed, to reduce
project risk, in order to increase the interest of
investors in this sector. Secondly, this approach is
combined with an evolutionary step development to
analyze the potential growth of the sector over the
coming decades. Finally, different fiscal measures are
designed in collaboration with stakeholders, and their
effectiveness to stimulate the transition to a low
carbon society is evaluated. Giving the high
geological uncertainty, this combined geologicaleconomic analysis is arguably the most realistic way
to calculate project performance, and simulate the
future development trajectory of the geothermal sector
subjected to different policy measures.
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