U.S. Still Reigns in Geothermal, but the Philippines Could Take Over

[Fledermaus]

Iceland is often on people’s minds when discussing geothermal energy. The country certainly has been tapping this resource for about a century. But the United States remains the largest geothermal energy producer in the world, having 2.2 gigawatts of production capacity, said Mark Taylor, a market research analyst at New Energy Finance.

Production tax credit has greatly boosted the industry’s expansion in the country. Investments in geothermal grew 97 percent from 2002 to 2008. Investments went up 38 percent to reach about $2.44 billion in 2008 from 2007. Most of the geothermal resources in the United States are located on public land, which is just being opened up for exploration after years of being unavailable to private developers.

Taylor said he’s seeing more private equity firms becoming first-time investors in this field.

Taylor, speaking at the Geothermal Innovation and Investment conference in San Francisco this week, said the Philippines comes next with almost 2 gigawatts. The Philippines could take over the lead in the next two years, Taylor said. The sizes of the projects in this Asian country tend to be larger — it has 15 projects in operation now compared with 68 in the United States.

http://greenlight.greentechmedia.com/2009/03/25/us-still-reigns-in-geothermal-but-the-philippines-could-take-over-1277/