Written by the United Nations Environment Programme
At the beginning of the 20th century, Iceland was one of Europe’s poorest countries, its people relying on a precarious and polluting mix of imported coal and local peat for electricity.
But over the next century, the island nation would pull off one of the great energy makeovers in history, casting off fossil fuels and embracing geothermal power.
Today, nearly 100 percent of Iceland’s electricity comes from renewable sources, a transformation that has helped make its 366,000 people some of the wealthiest in Europe.
For the last decade, Iceland has been working with the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP to spark a similar energy revolution in Eastern Africa.
Iceland has done everything from financing exploration projects to training future geothermal engineers.
“We are a small country, but we try to focus our efforts in certain areas and this is one of them,” said Guðmundur Ingi Guðbrandsson, Iceland’s Minister of the Environment and Natural Resources.
He called the country’s partnership with UNEP “fruitful”.
Harnessing geothermal energy means harnessing the heat from within the Earth, which is carried by water or steam onto the surface.
There are many ways in which the hot water can be released – through geysers, hot springs, steam vents, underwater hydrothermal vents – and they are all potential sources of geothermal energy.
Iceland, a pioneer in the use of geothermal energy, is home to more than 200 volcanoes and a large number of hot springs, and therefore has an abundant source of hot, easily accessible underground water.
This is converted to energy both for power generation and direct use applications.