GEOTHERMAL ENERGY IN ICELAND

) or 366 GJ percapita, which is among the highest in the world. Geothermalenergy provides about 48.8% of the total, hydropower 17.2%,oil 31.5% and coal 2.5%. The main use of geothermal energyis for space heating. About 85% of all houses are heated withgeothermal energy; the rest are heated mainly by electricity.So far, geothermal resources have only, to a limited extent,been used for electric power generation, because of theavailability of relatively cheap hydropower resources. Of thetotal electricity production of 5,000 GWh in 1995, only 288GWh or 5.8% came from geothermal energy, 94% from hydroand 0.2% from fuels.Figure 1 shows the annual primary energy supply in theperiod 1940-1995, classified by energy sources. Direct uses ofgeothermal energy (Table 1) are calculated as used energybased on an estimated temperature drop for each utilizationsector.