Alexander Helling, CEO of Baseload Capital, recently spoke with Bloomberg, the global leader in business and financial information and news, to shed light on geothermal heating. Kasumi Yasukawa, a special adviser to the Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC) and chairman of the geothermal division of the International Energy Agency (IEA), also shared her insights on the Japanese market.
During this interview, Alexander Helling expressed that the potential for geothermal heating in Japan presents a significant and promising business opportunity within the country. To illustrate its potential, he used Sweden as an example, where over 40% of households currently use geothermal heat pumps, resulting in approximately 20% monthly savings on utility expenses. Remarkably, the installed capacity for geothermal heat has grown exponentially worldwide, increasing 15-fold in the past two decades.
However, Japan has been slower to embrace this technology. Kasumi Yasukawa attributed Japan's reluctance to adopt geothermal heating to several factors, including the widespread use of air conditioning, the lack of infrastructure compatible with geothermal heat pumps (unlike Europe, where boilers are more common), and the relatively high implementation costs. According to the Ministry of the Environment, the introduction of geothermal heat pumps has the potential to reduce energy consumption for cooling by an impressive 30-70%. Ms. Yasukawa firmly believes that geothermal energy is an environmentally friendly energy source with a low environmental impact. As introduction costs in Japan decline and awareness continues to grow, it will undoubtedly become one of the most effective means of combating global warming. Read the article published on Bloomberg (Japanese only). https://www.bloomberg.co.jp/news/articles/2023-09-28/S0YOL2T0AFB401