Webinar – Geothermal in Northern Alsace, France

As part of the regular Focus on Geothermal webinar series, a partnership between ThinkGeoEnergy and Enerchange, we are proud to host Dr Albert Genter, Deputy General Manager of ES Geothermie. The webinar “Geothermal energy in Northern Alsace: social acceptability as a success driver?” will tackle the history of geothermal development in Alsace, France, the social issues that were encountered, and how such issues were addressed.

Dr Genter’s team is exploiting two geothermal plants producing electricity (Soultz-sous-Forêts) and heat (Rittershoffen). Graduated with a PhD in Applied Geology from the University of Orléans in 1989 (France), he is currently elected at the board of the French Geothermal Association, and he is a former board of director at IGA (International Geothermal Association) from 2013 to 2020. After starting his career as structural geologist at BRGM, the French Geological Survey, he moved to Soultz as Scientific Manager and finally to industry at ES in Strasbourg.

Albert contributed to many French and European R&D projects in deep geothermal energy and is an expert in fractured reservoirs in basement rocks. He is author or co-author of more than 80 peer-review scientific publications.

In Northern Alsace, France, scientific research on deep geothermal energy carried out by European teams over several decades has led to the commissioning of a first EGS power plant that produces electricity in Soultz-sous-Forêts. Based on the lessons learnt, a second plant that produces heat at high temperature, has also been erected in Rittershoffen. These two geothermal plants have been in operation for the last 7 years with an availability over 90% and without any issues related to induced seismicity.

However, serious problems of induced seismicity felt in the Strasbourg region between 2019 and 2021 have generated a real opposition against this technology. Thus, in order to be the closest from the local population, the Rittershoffen plant is regularly opened to the public. Then, since mid-2022, more than 1,200 visitors, representatives of citizens, associations, local, national and European officials, as well as worldwide engineers and scientists have visited our facilities.

Both the occurrence of lithium dissolved within the geothermal brine as well as the preliminary research on lithium extraction was also explained to the public and confirms the interest of exploiting geothermal resources in the energy transition but by taking in account the acceptability of the public.