ABSTRACT
There are several ways that geothermal energy can be utilised. In the previous chapters, power generation from geothermal heat was discussed in detail. Besides power generation, geothermal energy can be used directly for several applications. They include 1) space cooling and heating for individual homes and for district heating on commercial basis, and heat pumps, 2) dehydration and greenhouse cultivation, 3) aquaculture, 4) industrial processing, and 5) for balneology. Direct utilisation of geothermal energy is one of the oldest and most common forms of utilising geothermal energy (Lund and Boyd, 2015). The world installed capacity for direct utilisation of geothermal energy is 70329MWt and the total annual energy use is 163287GWh (Lund and Boyd, 2015). The direct utilisation of geothermal energy in the world over a period of 10 years, from 2005 to 2015 is shown in Table 8.1.
