Geothermal energy is a non-carbon-based renewable energy source, able to provide base load power
for electricity and heat generation in many countries around the world. In continental Europe the
geothermal potential is estimated to be over 50.000 MW, but only in Italy, Iceland, and Portugal is it
harnessed for the generation of electricity (over 1.400 MW). The development
scenarios foresee about 5-6000 MW of installed geothermal electric capacity within 2020 and between 15.000 and 30,000 MW within 2030.
To realize such an increase is beyond the scope of available mature technology and requires the
development and market introduction of new cost-effective technologies for a) significantly enhancing the production from already identified and utilized resources b) exploring at large scale new untapped deep seated (up to 6 km) hydrothermal systems c) making Engineered Geothermal ready for large scale deployment, d) accessing new extreme “high potential” resources such as Supercritical fluids and Magmatic systems. To face these challenges the EERA Joint Programme on Geothermal Energy (JPGE) aims at providing an outstanding contribution bringing together the 14 leading European geothermal research institutions in a single strategically oriented Joint R&D Programme. This session, jointly with the session Deep geothermal resources - development, operation and management aims to present leading edge research results on Deep Geothermal Energy research for (heat and) electricity exploration and production . This session focuses on research contributions in the field of geothermal exploration methods, information systems, geological modeling and process oriented approaches targeted at resource and reservoir assessment at the exploration stage. We also invite contributions dealing with numerical methods to investigate the subsurface structure, to estimate the hydraulic and thermal properties, and to quantify their uncertainties.