The Faroe Islands is planning to change its common energy sources with several renewable energy in the near future. Ground source is one of them. The ambition is to obtain ground source heat for half of all heated houses on the Faroe Islands by 2025. Using heat-pumps will enhance the transition to a fossil-free society.

The heat-pumps extract and transfer heat from the ground into a house. That requires little energy which can be produced from a renewable source. The heat-pumps are energy efficient and can replace heating from oil-burners and thereby reduce the use of fossil fuels.

In order to use the system, a 200-meter deep hole must be drilled into the underground.  To encourage people to install heat-pumps in their homes, there is VAT exemption on the technology.

The ground source heat pumps have been presented as a best practice example from the Faroe Islands in the EU project SECURE (Smarter Energy Communities in Northern & Arctic Regions) funded by the Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme 2014-2020.

From 2009-2015 the collaboration GRANI took place on the Faroe Islands between the Danish energy company “Ørsted A/S” (formerly ”DONG Energy”) and the Faroese national energy company SEV. Through the collaboration, the two energy companies conducted common activities to develop and integrate sustainable energy sources in the energy systems with the Faroe Islands as the test laboratory. Among other technologies, the integration of heat-pumps was included.

Keywords: heating, ground source, heat-pump, energy efficiency, renewable energy, collaboration, Faroe Islands