WorldWide Drilling Resource

Geothermal Growth Around the World by 2020 Adapted from a Press Release by Transparency Market Research Transparency Market Research, a New York research and consulting company has released its forecast for the geothermal heat pump industry through 2020. The major end users of geothermal heat pumps currently include residential and commercial customers. Both these end users have been further subsegmented on the basis of installation type as new building systems and retrofit systems. Installation of horizontal loops involves excavation of trenches, while installation of vertical loops involves drilling boreholes into the ground. Since vertical installations require a significantly smaller space, the report indicates they will be more preferred across the world. With average home sizes gradually reducing in the past decade, the available land area for each house is also expected to decrease. This is likely to boost the installation volumes of vertical loop geothermal heat pump systems. Generally, vertical loops are preferred for retrofit system installations since very limited earthmoving requirements are associated with the installation of such loops. A large number of new building systems are still expected to install horizontal closed loops throughout the forecast period. Horizontal loops are less expensive to install than vertical loops where the soil type has a major impact on the overall cost of drilling. The residential and commercial sectors are the primary adopters of geothermal heat pumps globally. Commercial geothermal heat pump systems are generally of much larger capacities than individual residential systems. Commercial customers are likely to emerge as the most attractive end user segment of geothermal heat pumps within the forecast period. The primary reason for this is commercial customers are relatively desensitized to the high up-front expenditures required for geothermal heat pumps. The report also shows Europe is currently the largest market for geothermal heat pumps globally, followed by North America and Asia Pacific. The U.S. is the largest market in North America followed by Canada, which has high potential for geothermal heating systems. There are four large markets for geothermal heat pumps in Europe: Sweden, Germany, France, and Switzerland. These four countries are mature markets for geothermal heat pumps and have been exhibiting declining annual capacity additions in the recent past. Poland, Greece, the UK, and the Czech Republic are some of the nations which are likely to emerge as at- tractive markets for geothermal heat pumps in the future. China accounts for nearly all of the installed capacity of geothermal heat pumps in Asia Pacific. China has exhibited significant growth rates in annual installations over the past decade, which peaked in 2008 during the Beijing Olympic Games. South Korea, New Zealand, and Australia are likely to emerge as highly attractive markets for geothermal heat pumps in Asia Pacific within the forecast period. Geothermal drilling project in Wisconsin. 53 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® MARCH 2017