by Andru McCracken
A national advocacy group for geothermal power made an important breakthrough at the federal level this month.
In a presentation to the Standing Committee on Natural Resources in Ottawa in May, The Canadian Geothermal Energy Association (CanGEA) said there was a gap in data on geothermal energy. The association recommended that the Geological Survey of Canada or Natural Resources Canada receive funding and a mandate to complete geothermal favourability maps for all of Canada. So far only four areas have been mapped, the latest being Nunavut.
The standing committee took those recommendations to heart and in their recent report, Rethinking Canada’s Energy Information System: Collaborative Models in a Data-Driven Economy, the committee recommended that the federal government designate a “one-stop shop” for detailed regional and national energy information that is “accurate, timely, transparent, comprehensive, user-friendly, internally-consistent, free-of-charge, responsive to the needs of individual sectors, and independent of political influence.”
The committee also recommended that the federal government work with stakeholders to identify gaps in Canadian energy information and mitigate these gaps by providing financial, legal and/or administrative support for data collection.
“CanGEA is pleased with the committee’s report and hopes to work with the Government of Canada in the near future to increase the coverage and accessibility of geothermal energy data in Canada,” the press release read.
The Canadian Geothermal Energy Association (CanGEA) describes itself as the collective voice of Canada’s geothermal energy industry with a focus on the power generation from geothermal energy resources and industry-scale direct use.
