Executive Summary

Current report is based on analysis of industry trends in UK geothermal energy and this is a suitable prospect for reducing pollution level. Here, Ecotricity is considered as an organisation for ensuring industry trends with detail segmentation. For justifying the key prospects in the industry, PESTLE, SWOT, Porters Five Forces are considered by generating grid through dimensions. Four quadrants have been generated for justifying the current scenario with better value generation scheme for the betterment of suitable aspects of change for behaviour analysis in customers with high assurance.

Introduction

Geothermal energy is a kind of renewable energy that works trough radioactive decay and this type of energy is stored into rocks and fluids. Recently, this energy is hugely accepted all through the globe for generating electricity. In UK, Ecotricity deals with Geothermal Engineering Limited for generating pollution free electricity across the country. Evidence suggests that formation of new plant can be helpful to ensure better prospect on electricity by reducing 25% demand of non-renewable energy for this country. Aim of the report is to forecast the key market trends of geothermal energy industry in UK by explaining key dimensions with detail quadrant analysis through grid.

Industry details

Even during forthcoming years, this same geothermal energy market will reach Kingdom is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of some more than 1%. The geothermal power market was dominated by variables such as the need for a cost-effective as well as long-term alternative fuel, as well as the increased adoption of alternative electricity (Abesser et al. 2020). The implementation of geothermal energy is favoured by the restricted combustion fossil fuels and indeed the reduced emissions of CO2 and all other greenhouse gases and hydrocarbons. The lucrative industry for wind and solar power, on either hand, is probable to stifle product demand.

Figure 1: Market summary of UK geothermal energy

(Source: Mordorintelligence.com, 2021)

• In during projected timeframe, heat transfer use of is expected to lead the global.
• The recovery of the rather undiscovered massive geothermal possibility for low-carbon energy production and straightforward that is used in cooling as well as heating is anticipated to be aided by the emergence of advantageous regulatory frameworks. Geothermal power has a minimal impact on the environment and therefore can produce electricity at a cheaper price than fossil energy like gas and coal.
• The United Kingdom’s relatively unexplored renewable sources get the prospects to provide up to 20% of the nation’s economic energy requirements in an affordable and consistent manner (co.uk, 2021). Supplemental geothermal energy exploration is believed to assist the nation achieve its negligible benchmark by 2050. In the next several years, the UK company has established however apart over EUR 300 million to buy shares in divisional heat connections. That are a critical part of moving forward and then creating potential markets. Profound geothermal energy is yet another option for generating district heating in the long term.

Figure 2: Competitive landscape in UK geothermal energy

(Source: Mordorintelligence.com, 2021)

The geothermal electricity economy inside the United Kingdom is aggregated. Geothermal ‘Engineering Ltd.’, ‘GT Energy’, ‘Eden Geothermal Ltd’, ‘Go Geothermal Ltd’, and ‘Engie SA’ are amongst the industry’s key figures (Mordorintelligence.com, 2021).

Industry trends

• Geothermal power for heat generation can play a large role; it has the possibilities to supply millions of households in the Country, and it can be procured whether from natural underground natural energy (com, 2021).
• There are a variety of low to moderate thermal resource management in the United Kingdom. Superficial renewable sources, for instance, are gaining popularity in recent years. This energy is derived and is used to avoid overheating residential buildings using deep geothermal heating systems (com, 2021).
• ‘The Southampton District Energy Scheme’, ‘The Eden Project, Rosemanowas Quarry’, ‘Penzance Jubilee Pool’, and ‘Weardale Renewable Energy Village’ are some of the combined heat and power megaprojects being established for electricity and heat production.

Figure 3: Geothermal energy market revenue in UK

(Source: Mordorintelligence.com, 2021)

• Southampton is the city that benefits the most from geothermal energy. As of 1986, a hydroelectricity has been in operation. The power system heats the city hall, a supermarket, a swimming pool, over 300 flats, guesthouses, and the Southampton port.
• The much more favourable province is in the southwest of England. Cornwall is a perfect location for the United Kingdom’s first profound steam generator. Thus, according Geothermal Engineering Ltd, the plant is designed to steam and authority 3000 homes (GEL) (Watson et al. 2019).
• Requirement for combined heat and power energy technologies to rise in the coming years due to rising electricity consumption and the prospect of undiscovered geological formations.
• Renewables generation sequencing technologies have already shown possible expansion among all electricity generating advanced technology legally available, extract showed the highest government expenditure. Government agencies and affiliations’ regulation landscapes are largely cantered on alternative energy sources.
• Wind, bioenergy, and solar renewable energies currently dominate the sustainable energy industry in the United Kingdom, and are anticipated to do so in the future. Solar and wind, in specific, have proven to be the most successful renewable energy sources. The reason for this accomplishment can be attributed to the cloud computing decreasing expense, which has resulted in an extraordinarily low LCOE and additional government implementation of distributed generation.
• Installed renewable power generation capacity 24128 MW in 2019, while installed solar potential achieved 13398 MW, both representing substantial growth over preceding decades (Paulillo et al. 2020).
• The expectation for geothermal electricity technology is believed to rise in the coming years, thanks to rising electricity consumption and government initiatives for combined heat and power plants.

Figure 4: Key trends in UK geothermal energy market

(Source: Mordorintelligence.com, 2021)

Energy market in UK is changing constantly and radical transformation has been seen in a suitable manner. In order to understand the energy value chain as well as capabilities, it can be considered that this energy firm is associated with passive customer demand. Platform-based Amazon and Uber model is considered by geothermal energy of UK by engaging more consumers through participation of various social media (Gluyas et al. 2018). In case of European markets, the customers are based on carbon footprint as well as its in-depth analysis. They swich the energy sector as per the preference and majorly they have followed digital channels to influence rates as well as products.

Key trends and developments developed from the analysis

In order to identify the key trends and development of geothermal energy within the UK different technological aspects and strategic developments must be included. Besides, there are four major resources of geothermal presented within the environment and these are pressured, magma, hydrothermal, and hot dry rock. Hydrothermal is the main principle of evaluating the energy resources within geothermal and the rest three are involved with infant stages of development (Zhu et al. 2015). Ecotricity must focus on the key trends and technological development for achieving their objectives and producing better quality electric supplements in the UK. Additionally, there are visible features of geothermal energy and these are hot springs, volcanoes, fumaroles, and geysers. For identifying the key trends and development of geothermal, prospects of technology innovation, improvement, and integration are required to this particular energy (Meller et al. 2017). According to NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), it is seen that 100,000 MWe can be reached as an energy and power source in 15-20 years (Oil and gas portal, 2021). This is mainly responsible for the sustained investment in R&D.  The future project of geothermal energy production can set 1,400 TWh of electricity per year and it is approximately 67 TWh in the present situation. Besides, technological growth and its development focus on the particular geothermal services with UK and that will be more relevant to effective electricity supplementation.

“Improvements in Exploration, Drilling, and Assessment Technologies”

“Efficient Production of Geothermal Power, Heat and/or Cooling”

“Technological and Process Challenges in Enhanced Geothermal Systems”

Geothermal energy has the ability to meet a large amount of electricity to supplement the UK’s home and by 2030 the entire world will require 60% more energy than the current situation. For these potential resources, the UK is able to manage 20% geothermal energy to manage technological aspects (Green match, 2021). Thus, Ecotricity can manage a large amount of geothermal energy for producing electricity in the UK.

Most of the areas of North UK are Northern Ireland, Cheshire, and North East is involved very prominently in UK’s geothermal energy. Moreover, by using proper management of Ecotricity, UK is able to manage 10MW electricity and 550 MW heats for the community of “Redruth Site”. This large amount of energy is produced through using 21 turbines in this area and funding for the geothermal projects in UK by the Ecotricity is approximately £2 million funding (Green match, 2021).  Thus, proper technological growth and key trends are really useful for geothermal energy development for producing large amounts of electricity and heat and besides Ecotricity is looking for geothermal resources.

Design your grid (the dimensions of the grid)

In order to design the grid on the basis of geothermal energy activities, several dimensions are included. These are followed as:

Grid 1: Environmental issues that affect greenhouse

Grid 2: Surface Instability is a construction of geothermal power

Grid 3: Cost-effectiveness or expensive

Grid 4: Sustainability issues

In order to analyse the dimensions of these grids, major two dimensions are going to be discussed and these are environmental issues and sustainability issues. The main environmental concerns are geothermal power plants and potential surface instability (Trutnevyte and Wiemer, 2017). Earthquakes are the major impact of environmental issues in geothermal energy in The UK and water and air are used in case of geothermal plants re-injection. Increasing earthquakes and surface instability are really effective in the case of environmental aspects related to geothermal activities. On the other hand, sustainability development in Geothermal is mainly dependent on renewable energy sources and these are collected from nature (Von Jouanne and Brekken, 2017). Large amounts of heat are generated from the earth’s core and geothermal areas are focused on “reservoirs of hot water” and “volume was taken out from the re-injection into the surface”. Sustainability issues are included within the dimensions and that are really manageable in the case of designing a grid relevant to geothermal energy in the UK like Ecotricity.

SWOT analysis can be useful to identify exact risks and opportunities of geothermal energy in case of producing electricity and heat. These are discussed below.

Strength: the UK is the core region for developing its energy resources and its proper management and for this Geothermal energy must be used to produce large amounts of heat and electricity (Zame et al. 2018). In addition, renewable energy like water, winds, sun power, and many more are available within the UK to help Ecotricity for analysing different projects with a great deal.

Weakness: Renewable energy is not sufficient for the geothermal energy management procedures and for this lack of resources and its cost-effectiveness can include this process. This is one of the major difficulties within geothermal energy production within the UK.

Opportunities: Various projects are involved with the UK’s electric supplement and Ecotricity looks forward to managing different projects of geothermal energy to evaluate electricity production. Many more supply lines and wind resources can be included to maintain the production a great deal (Kamran et al. 2020). Moreover, by 2030, the Electric supply line of the UK will capture most of the geothermal energy towards the electric supplement.

Threats: many new subsidiaries are opened and various small companies are trying to produce electricity by managing different technologies. Due to this, it’s a really high risk for Ecotricity to capture a few numbers of projects related to heat and energy production (Igliński et al.  2015). Cost-effectiveness and materials related to renewable energy are also threats for the UK’s geothermal energy and its resources implementation.

Therefore, SWOT is really helpful for identifying the issues in geothermal energy and managing the production by applying great technology to it in an adequate manner. Thus, the Maximum of electricity supply line and heat production companies like Ecotricity can deliver extraordinary energy sources to the UK for maintaining every individual house by providing better electricity.

Name and populate the four quadrants

Environment issues are considered as a dimension within geothermal energy and that is really sufficient to analyse and design the four quadrants in this regard. After that, major environmental issues are included within the four quadrants and these are going to be discussed in an adequate manner (Pasqualetti and Stremke, 2018).

Figure: Four quadrants for the environmental issues in the case of geothermal energy

(Source: Created by author)

In the case of analysing the proper management of environmental aspects in geothermal energy and its production, different issues and problems are included within nature and these are Solid waste and seismicity, Surface and subsurface waters, emissions into the atmosphere, changes of landscape and land use. One is going to be selected for discussing the entire issues and problems within geothermal energy and this is “changes of landscape and land use”. The potential for surface instability is a major concern of geothermal power plants and that is really useful for identifying the impact of environmental issues in renewable energy sources (Wisaksono et al. 2018). Removing or water and steaming of reservoirs to earth are the major points within landscaper changing. Subsidence is referred to as gradual curving of land. Earthquake and Seismicity are the major parts of greenhouse gas emissions and that is fully involved with geothermal energy productions.

Ecotricity has faced these kinds of issues by managing projects related to geothermal energy optimization. A field of geothermal energy can capture 1-8 acres/MW and for nuclear operations, 5-10 acres/MW are involved within the environment (Energy.Gov, 2021). Apart From this, for coal power plants this numeric is approximately 19 acres/MW and mining operations are engaged with underground construction on earth along with tunnels, open pits, and waste heaps. An effective geothermal electricity plant calls for “wells”, and “drilling” them for influencing the use of land. Slant drilling operations and superior directionality have been involved with numerous wells to manage the impact. The process can reduce “the quantity of land wanted for drilling pads”, and geothermal fluid piping, get admission to roads. Apart from that, for geothermal exploration, “Slimhole drilling” can be used for managing the environmental impact along with 8-12 inches diameter (Energy.Gov, 2021). Alongside, carbon emissions and evaporation are also included in this operation for producing electricity and heat with proper management of geothermal energy and its resources (Galiègue and Laude, 2017). Thus, Ecotricity must look for upgrading environmental aspects to remove the risk dimensions from the energy productions and mitigate environmental issues from the UK.

Conclusion

From the above discussion of energy sources and geothermal energy optimization for producing electricity and heat, it can be said that proper land usage and environmental perspectives are involved in geothermal energy and its resource up-gradation. Some key trends and technological aspects are discussed for achieving the exact goals of geothermal energy and due to these different dimensions are developed according to the grid. Alongside four quadrants are designed on the basis of dimensions and most appropriate for the geothermal energy dimension is Environmental issues along with Landscape changes and use of land. Therefore, the Ecotricity Company can manage the exact procedures of procuring electricity with developed geothermal energy and renewable resources within the UK.