Following an exceptional 2023, GEORG has maintained strong momentum throughout the year 2024, with an annual income of 142 million ISK. While this represents a modest reduction from the previous year’s record turnover, it reflects our strategic transition as the Krafla Magma Testbed (KMT) evolved into an independent entity, a strong testament to GEORG’s ability to incubate and mature early-stage concepts through to independent projects.
The year 2024 was particularly strong in European cooperation for GEORG, with a diverse focus ranging from technological to social and policy cooperation.
GEORG continued to maintain a strong involvement in Horizon Europe grant projects, including COMPASS and EPOS-ON, which are initiatives advancing cutting-edge research and development in the high-temperature geothermal context.
GEORG has for the past few years built up a strong voice in EU policy and grant environment with active role in the GEOTHERM FORA project that has the goal to facilitate research and innovation activites in Europe the work of the European Technology and Innovation Platform on Geothermal (ETIP-Geothermal) and the Geothermal Implementation Working Group (IWG) as well as supporting The Clean Energy Transition by actively managing the TRI4 Heating and Cooling Office in collaboration with Orkustofnun and the GEOTHERMICA network.
The GEOTHERMICA Initiative, successfully launched in 2023 as a continuation of GEOTHERMICA Cofund, gained significant traction this year, establishing itself as a vital platform for international collaboration in the sector and the program continues to drive strategic planning and support for geothermal development across Europe and North America.
GEORG’s international cooperation deepened further through two new bilateral initiatives supported by the EEA grant program. The Geothermal Bridge Initiative connected Iceland and Romania through workshops, field visits, and policy dialogue focused on geothermal regulation, education, and deployment. The GeoSynergy project, developed in partnership with Polish institutions, supported high-level knowledge exchange, policy innovation, and long-term collaboration strategies. Both projects reinforced GEORG’s role as a trusted facilitator of cross-border cooperation.
Looking ahead to 2025, we anticipate continued growth in international collaboration across the geothermal sector. However, the landscape and focus are shifting and evolving, driven by factors such as geopolitical uncertainties, increasing energy demand and new technologies that are impacting the sector. This creates both challenges and opportunities for an organisation like GEORG, which operates at the critical intersection of industry, academia, and government, requiring a dynamic approach to our operation to best serve the goals of GEORG and subsequently advancing geothermal development on all levels. That will be our emphasis for the year 2025, with our approach centred on both aligning topics with industry needs and exploring deeper cooperation opportunities with diverse stakeholders throughout the geothermal support ecosystem.
The year 2024 marked a significant change for the GEORG team. Hjalti Páll Ingólfsson, who served as the managing director of GEORG from its inception, transitioned to a new role at the end of the year, with Sigurdur Markusson joining the team as interim director.
We extend our sincere gratitude to our dedicated team, board members, and all partners whose expertise and commitment continue to drive GEORG’s success in advancing sustainable geothermal solutions globally.
Prof. Sigurður Magnús Garðarsson & Sigurður H. Markússon
Prof. Sigurður Magnús Garðarsson– Dean and Professor, School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland & Hjalti Páll Ingólfsson– Managing Director of GEORG
GEORG is a resilient, strong, and independent cluster cooperation, as last year demonstrated. The COVID-19 year, 2020, will be remembered as the year of many challenges, adoptions, and new working ways. It taught us that even though we master new online teamwork techniques, making it in many ways more efficient and economic, the need for direct human communication and connection is ever more necessary.
We look forward to meeting our friends again, hopefully before the end of this year, and we are optimistic enough to believe that by the end of October, we will all be able to meet in person at the WGC2020+1 in Harpa Reykjavik.
Despite the challenges of 2020, GEORG continues to grow, with yet again a record-breaking turnover of over 106MISK. We managed to conclude the DEEPEGS project with an elegant book of publications summarising the projects science work. We continued to operate GEOTHERMICA Office, fostering the growth of the network even further. In 2020 a second call was concluded, and in 2021 we will be managing a joint call between GEOTHERMICA and the JPP Smart Energy Systems network, focusing on heating and cooling. GEORG’s important task is to be the Secretariat for the Deep Geothermal Implementation Working Group (DG-IWG). The DG-IWG aims to move forward with the Deep Geothermal Implementation Plan (DG-IP), endorsed by the SET–Plan Steering Committee, in order to reach the goals of placing Europe at the forefront of the low carbon energy scene. GEORG is taking an active part in running the GECO project office together with the Projects Coordinator, Orkuveita Reykjavíkur. We lead the project’s communication and cost/benefit analysis of the technology, to name a few tasks. Finally, GEORG has taken an active part in the exciting projects GEOENVI and Crowdthermal and pushed through several significant project proposals, internationally and domestically.
The year 2020 was a turning point for the KMT (Krafla Magma Testbed) project. Following extensive preparation work and strong international support to the project, the Icelandic Government was willing to support the project with a 100MISK founding grant. In addition to that, the project lead is in negotiation with funding authorities in the UK, Iceland, and Italy to further support towards the project to fully finance its initial steps towards a complete magma testbed at Krafla.
The minister of tourism, industry and innovation recently introduced a new cluster strategy for Iceland. The strategy sets out a vision that by 2030 Iceland will be one of the World’s leading nations in terms of sustainable economic development, competitiveness, and general prosperity. We celebrate this new strategy and appreciate its acknowledgement of the importance of cooperation like GEORG. Renewable energy, and geothermal in particular, are among the strongest pillars of Iceland‘s economy and hold enormous innovation opportunities in terms of a circular economy, sustainability and carbon neutrality. GEORG will continue to foster cooperation, build bridges, and support innovation, for Iceland to maintain its competitive advantage in renewable energy utilisation. Together, we can make Iceland the leading nations in terms of sustainable economic development and competitiveness by 2030.
