New Delhi, Jan 15 (ANI): Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah said here on Friday that bilateral cooperation with Iceland is essential to make progress in the area of geothermal energy development.

Addressing the India-Iceland workshop on Renewable Energy here Abdullah listed out areas likely for cooperation between the two countries including technology transfer on deep drilling, reservoir assessment and setting up of geothermal demonstration power plants.

The workshop discussed issues relating to cooperation between India and Iceland for development of geothermal sector in India by assessing the geothermal resources and its utilization for power generation and thermal applications.

“Iceland being well recognized by UNESCO to provide training in geothermal energy development should consider training a group of Indian engineers and scientists on all the aspects of geothermal energy utilization,” Abdullah said.

“Iceland’s success in the utilization of locally available renewable energy sources, especially the geothermal energy and hydro power, has contributed substantially to its economy,” he added

Iceland is one among the top six countries in the world in utilization of geothermal energy with installed power generating capacity of about 575 Megawatts against global geothermal power generating capacity of about 10,500 Megawatts.

In addition, geothermal heat meets the heating and hot water requirements of about 87percent of Iceland’s housing.

The workshop also deliberated on cooperation in the area of small hydro power sector.

So far about 700 small hydropower projects aggregating to 2,558 Mega watts have been set up in various parts of India and 290 projects of about 900 Megawatts are in various stages of implementation. The total installed hydropower capacity in Iceland is about 2400 Megawatts.(ANI)