Accelerate Geothermal Expansion While Protecting Drinking Water Resources

Bündnis 90/Die Grünen Bundestagsfraktion has endorsed accelerating geothermal deployment via the Geothermal Acceleration Act (GeoBG) while demanding stronger drinking water protections.

• Main announcement/action: The party supports a sped-up roll-out of geothermal as a central part of the heat transition to achieve climate-neutral heat by 2045, but criticises the current GeoBG for removing concrete targets (the original draft included 10 TWh of geothermal and at least 100 additional geothermal projects by 2030) and for weakening drinking water protection; it demands that geothermal be excluded from drinking water protection zones I and II.
• Background and additional details: The statement requires a clear legal distinction between hydrothermal, closed-system, and petrothermal (fracking) geothermal, calling for petrothermal/fracking methods to be excluded due to environmental risks; it notes that heat pipelines were added to the law but should be accelerated only for renewable-sourced heat, and it calls for increasing the BEW federal funding to €3.5 billion annually (special fund/Sondervermögen is available).