Exploiting Geothermal Energy for Renewable Energy Communities in Italy

The adoption of key directives by the EU Commission for reaching the ambitious energy and climate targets by 2050 and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030, allowed to an increasingly use of renewable energies in the last years. In this framework, sharing of renewable energies through energy communities plays an important role in fastest reaching the energy transition. Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) aim to generate, distribute, share and consume renewable energies collectively. This work deals with the identification of the areas where RECs are more suitable in Italy through the use of an energy platform. This platform monitors actual energy consumption and production but also the territorial constraints and the availability to exploit all the renewable resources still available. A focus on the use of geothermal energy, which could be used to share both thermal energy and electricity within RECs, is presented. Areas with the greatest geothermal potential have been shown, explaining also how geothermal energy can be exploited through specific technologies. Considerations on how it is the social perception in using geothermal energy and why it is not still use as it should be, have been also introduced.