During an exchange of views in today's ENVE Commission meeting, CoR rapporteur József Ribányi animatedly shared with members the numerous benefits of geothermal energy and why we need an EU strategy on it.

With rising fossil energy prices, and an ongoing war threatening our energy infrastructure, local and regional authorities are looking for solutions that are clean and local, flexible and versatile, and most importantly, affordable. According to our member and CoR rapporteur, geothermal energy can offer all of the above and more. Mr Ribányi continued to say that geothermal energy can "increase the resilience of communities and make them more energy independent but it remains a hugely unexploited energy source".

In addition to being a very dependable energy source, it can widely contribute to the EU's decarbonisation efforts through the exploitation of decommissioned oil and gas wells and coal mines across Members States for geothermal energy. However, many challenges remain such as access to data, a qualified work force and lack of financing structures.

Mr  Ribányi will continue his work on the topic through meetings with stakeholders before submitting the draft opinion, which is is up for adoption at the ENVE Commission meeting in February and CoR plenary in April.