Sino-German Geothermal Research Centre (SG-GRC)
Participants from the 2015 Sino-German Symposium: "Sustainable Utilization of Geothermal Energy"The growing Chinese economy is faced with an enormous, increasing demand in energy.
Today China's total energy consumption is mainly supplied by coal (66% in 2012). China's installed coal-based power plants account for 77% of the total electrical capacity in 2014. In order to decrease the coal consumption, motivated by both controlling serious air pollution and reducing CO2 emission, China is currently developing shale gas exploration and exploitation strategies (Hou et al. 2015), which serves as a bridging technology. China is developing renewable energy resources mainly from hydro and wind power (378 GW in 2013). Even though the country is already the world’s largest manufacturer of solar photovoltaic panels, the application of this technology is still limited due to its costs. China has a substantial potential of geothermal energy resources. The high-temperature reservoirs are mainly located in the Himalayan, and are suitable for electricity production. The middle-to-low temperature resources can be found in main sedimentary basins, and some have been utilized for domestic heating (Kong et al. 2015). The shallow surface geothermal systems, mainly in the form of ground source heat pumps (GSHP), are particularly suited for combined heating-cooling purposes in urban areas. It is also a promising technology for mitigating the air pollution by substituting coal based domestic heating in the northern part of the country.
The Sino-German Geothermal Research Centre (SG-GRC) shall provide a profound basis for geothermal research activities in both Germany and China.
Scientific challenges and strategy of SG-GRC
During the symposium, several joint research topics were discussed for project collaborations among German and Chinese scientists. All the delegates agreed continuing the international collaboration and decided to establish a “Sino-German Geothermal Research Center” (SG-GRC) which will act as a joint research organization in order to initiate and coordinate future activities. The general goal for the cooperation in future is to build a Sino-German research network by leading Chinese and German experts with their research groups and expertise in the field of geothermal energy. This initiative will form the basis for intensive exchange of research methods and knowledge as well as practical experience provided by the involved industry partners.
