Publication:
Geothermal Energy: Unveiling the Socioeconomic Benefit

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (7.15 MB)
357 downloads
English Text (297.89 KB)
43 downloads
Published
2024-01-19
ISSN
Date
2024-01-19
Editor(s)
Abstract
This report highlights the socioeconomic contributions of the geothermal sector, including the potential opportunities and benefits that can be enhanced at national and local levels throughout geothermal projects’ development and operation. The report was prepared using qualitative data from over 40 stakeholders in the geothermal industry, including governments, industry associations, academia, public and private sector developers, and technical experts. Quantitative data were collected from a survey of 15 geothermal developers around the world. Key lessons and best practices are outlined in the text and also showcased across 27 case studies. The report examines benefits across four categories, derived from the World Bank’s sustainable renewables risk mitigation initiative: participation of domestic companies in the geothermal value chain; geothermal employment and skill development; local development and benefit sharing; and gender equality and social inclusion.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP). 2024. Geothermal Energy: Unveiling the Socioeconomic Benefit. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/40922 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Gender Equality in The Geothermal Energy Sector
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-05) Energy Sector Management Assistance Program
    Although geothermal energy is globally recognized as a clean and reliable source of heat and electric power its development can inadvertently lead to adverse outcomes that disproportionately disadvantage women. Based on good practices and lessons learned, this report introduces ways that geothermal projects can mitigate risks and pursue opportunities to address gender gaps within the project cycle. It outlines the risks and opportunities associated with (i) changes in land and natural resource use, (ii) changes to employment and economic patterns, and (iii) changes to environment and health. Beyond mapping risks and opportunities, the report makes the case for focusing on the gaps between men and women from the project outset. Once gaps, key stakeholder risks, and additional development opportunities have been identified, project teams have an opportunity to address them through actions. The report provides guidance on how to include specific monitoring and evaluation indicators in the results framework for geothermal projects that measure progress toward closing gaps between men and women. In addition, the report contains an overview of guidance and toolkits developed, selected global case studies, and other resources so that project teams, governments, and geothermal developers have additional guidance on hand to prepare more equitable projects.
  • Publication
    Preparing Feasibility Studies for the Financing of Geothermal Projects
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06-18) Energy Sector Management Assistance Program
    This document offers guidelines for the preparation of feasibility studies for geothermal power projects in accordance with best industry practices. A geothermal feasibility study is a document, prepared by the project developer, that collects and presents information necessary to determine the technical and financial viability of a geothermal energy project and its compliance with environmental and social safeguards. In a broad sense, a feasibility study is a living document that evolves over the course of the project preparation phase. Such studies may also have specific purposes, such as to guide the internal business decisions of a project’s owners or to demonstrate the economic viability of a project and its alignment with the country´s energy strategy to public stakeholders. The guidelines presented here refer, specifically, to feasibility studies prepared for the purpose of securing financing, both debt and equity. A project developer prepares a feasibility study using reliable data so that financiers can assess the risks associated with a project. A feasibility study should identify the main risks and describe how they will be managed. A necessary condition for receiving funding is that financiers can assess project risks and their magnitude and whether these are in a range they are willing to accept. The guidelines offered in this document have two purposes. The first is to help project developers understand the required content and structure of a feasibility study. The second is to suggest how financing entities may assess whether a feasibility study is of adequate quality and scope. The topics addressed in a feasibility study for any power generation project are quite similar irrespective of the energy conversion technology. However, several aspects of geothermal projects set them apart from other power generation projects. For example, geothermal projects need significant investments in drilling relatively early in the project lifetime to reduce resource uncertainty. Even though the focus here is on geothermal projects for electricity production, most of the recommendations presented are equally valid for direct-use geothermal projects.
  • Publication
    Jobs generated by the Kosovo Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Project
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-22) Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP)
    The Kosovo Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Project (KEEREP) successfully generated direct and indirect employment opportunities in Kosovo through EE retrofits and related activities. The project also contributed to skill development and market growth in the EE sector, potentially leading to further job creation in the future. However, challenges related to the importation of materials and the need for domestic certification were identified as areas for improvement in facilitating domestic job growth. This case study seeks to shed light on the employment impacts associated with World Bank financing for energy efficiency and renewable energy investments in public buildings overseen by the central government as part of the KEEREP.
  • Publication
    Employment Impacts of Clean Energy Investments in Emerging Economies
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-22) Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP)
    Significant scale-up of clean energy, such as renewable energy and energy efficiency, is the most important component of worldwide efforts to address climate change and increase energy access. As clean energy makes a growing contribution to the total energy supply, as countries undertake their energy transitions, it is also expected to create millions of jobs. This review is part of an investigation into how the global energy transition - the move away from fossil fuels, which involves the adoption of new technologies and new service delivery models in the sector can contribute to job creation and support economic activity while advancing the global decarbonization agenda. The objective of this literature review is to understand how existing academic and policy work has assessed the impact of energy-transition-related policies, regulations, and investments on job creation, wages, and other employment-related outcomes. This review covers studies of energy sector jobs as well as jobs created in upstream sectors resulting from energy-transition-related investments and policy changes. The review also includes studies of wider, often economywide, “induced” employment effects. In particular it focuses on the impact of electrification programs using distributed renewable generation, since such programs make it possible to establish causality in job creation more clearly than clean energy projects contributing additional power to existing grids.
  • Publication
    Designing Responsible End-User Subsidies for Energy Access
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-29) Lighting Global; Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP)
    This toolkit provides a framework to design responsible subsidies, building on lessons learned, considering different contexts and objectives, and balancing tradeoffs. The way a subsidy is designed will have an impact on the cost to the government, the speed of rollout, the number of people reached and its scalability, as well as the market-distortion and political risks discussed above. The toolkit provides recommendations on how to inform the subsidy design, options to set specific parameters (targeting, subsidy level, delivery, verification, exit or adjustment), as well as guidelines for communication about subsidies. It also provides recommendations on monitoring, evaluation, and adaptation mechanisms. This toolkit is primarily focused on subsidies for the purchase of off-grid solar products and clean cookstoves; it is limited in its application to fuel or electricity subsidies. Off-grid solar electrification is making the most progress through the selling of devices to end users (on cash or credit through mechanisms such as Pay-As-You Go). This toolkit draws primarily from the experience of subsidizing such sales and is therefore most applicable for the design of subsidies for product purchase. The report however acknowledges the importance of emerging Fee-for Service or Electricity-as-a-Service models, and most of the recommendations in this toolkit are also suitable for these models. However, they are not cited as prominently. Similarly, this toolkit is most applicable to subsidies for the purchase of improved and clean cooking devices. Less so for subsidies for fuels, such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), or the electricity consumed by electric cooking devices.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.
  • Publication
    Geothermal Handbook
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-06) Gehringer, Magnus; Loksha, Victor
    Developing countries face multiple and complex challenges in securing affordable and reliable energy supplies to support sustainable economic development. These challenges can be addressed by increased access to modern energy infrastructure, enhanced energy security through supply diversification, and transition to low carbon paths to meet rising energy demands. There is broad consensus that renewable energy has a major role to play in addressing these challenges. In recent years, support for renewable energy investment has become a mainstream activity for multilateral development banks and their clients. The World Bank, for instance, has supported geothermal development in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Global analytical work and technical assistance on clean energy are also one of the major program areas of the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP). This handbook is dedicated to geothermal energy as a source of electric power for developing countries. Many developing countries are endowed with substantial geothermal resources that could be more actively put to use. On top of the benefits stemming from its renewable nature, geothermal energy has several additional advantages, including the provision of stable and reliable power at a relatively low cost, around the clock, and with few operational or technological risks.
  • Publication
    World Development Report 2006
    (Washington, DC, 2005) World Bank
    This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.
  • Publication
    Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21) Luna-Bazaldua, Diego; Levin, Victoria; Liberman, Julia; Gala, Priyal Mukesh
    This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.
  • Publication
    Argentina Country Climate and Development Report
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11) World Bank Group
    The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.