A Heat Demand Map of North-West Europe – its impact on supply areas and identification of potential production areas for deep geothermal energy

To achieve the Paris Agreement's goal of maximum global warming by 2 degrees, CO2 reduction is indispensable. Space heating for residential, service and industrial buildings amounts to 26% of EU's final energy consumption with about 3347 TWh/a. Approximately 75% of the heat produced is generated by fossil fuels with high CO2 emissions. Those Emissions can be reduced by implementation of renewable energy sources, such as deep geothermal energy. As Part of the Interreg NWE project “DGE-ROLLOUT - Roll-out of Deep Geothermal Energy in NWE” a heat demand map of North-West Europe is developed to determine the spatial heat demand distribution of residential, service and industrial buildings. Subsequently limiting factors including subsurface geology and energy infrastructures are used to identify potential production areas for deep geothermal energy. In addition, potential supply areas of deep geothermal power plants by given annual heat production are estimated. The results will show that there is a great potential for CO2 reduction through the use of deep geothermal energy, especially in densely populated and heat consuming areas.