Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps her Department is taking to assess the UK’s economically recoverable reserves of geothermal energy.

The Government has supported research on geothermal in which some assessment of the UK potential is made. This includes funding a 2023 evidence-based assessment of the UK opportunity (https://www.bgs.ac.uk/news/new-report-assesses-deep-geothermal-energy-in-the-uk/); and commissioning additional research projects which will be published this summer. Together they will provide an update on geothermal energy generation cost estimates and make accessible currently disparate technical sources of geothermal data and information. The Mining Remediation Authority has also released opportunity maps for mine water heat (https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/0a4d95c1-5977-41a1-9c35-83017b871d22/mine-water-heat-opportunity-mapping-for-10-cities-in-england).