South America map reveals 6,000 GW of untapped geothermal power

Project InnerSpace today announced the launch of GeoMap™ South America, a geothermal exploration platform that reveals the continent’s vast untapped geothermal potential to deliver firm, locally produced, and sustainable power, long-duration subsurface storage, industrial-scale heat, and resilient heating and cooling for buildings.

Geothermal energy, the heat naturally occurring in the Earth’s crust, is an abundant and ubiquitous source of energy. Advances in drilling and subsurface technologies are making geothermal affordable and scalable in regions once thought inaccessible.

GeoMap integrates millions of surface and subsurface data points into an interactive, freely accessible platform and shows that the continent contains some of the highest heat flow zones in the world. GeoMap South America highlights where geothermal potential is strongest, including:

• Dozens of high-potential geothermal power production zones along the Andean volcanic belt with resources capable of generating tens of gigawatts of firm electricity, including Argentina (1,200 GW), Peru (400 GW), Colombia (300 GW), and Chile (200 GW).
• Opportunities for industrial applications in mining and mineral processing, showing strong alignment between critical mineral deposits and high geothermal favorability, and offering opportunities to power mining operations with local geothermal energy, particularly in northern Chile, southern Peru, and northwestern Argentina.
• Urban resilience solutions through district heating and cooling in major cities from Bogotá to Caracas and Santiago, improving quality of life and energy security.
• Brazil’s geothermal resource of over 2,000 GW holds exceptional potential for power, energy storage, cooling, and industrial heat. Areas in the northeastern part are ideal for renewables-integrated subsurface energy storage systems. The Amazonas Basin could support cooling, and the Paraná Basin may offer synergies with local energy needs. Brazil also has potential for geothermal industrial heat and power generation in select locations.

Momentum is also building to tap into this potential, including from the oil and gas sector. Ecopetrol, Colombia’s national energy company, recently secured a permit for geothermal exploration in the Azufral volcanic complex, marking a strategic pivot toward geothermal resources. Brazil recently approved the creation of a national geothermal energy program, increasing access to R&D funding for geothermal. Additionally, GeoMap South America has been significantly enriched by the inclusion of Brazilian onshore well-temperature data. While these data are publicly available, they are scattered across thousands of well reports. Petrobras, South America’s largest energy company, accelerated integration of this data into GeoMap through a partnership with Project InnerSpace that provided data structured from its internal databases, drastically reducing the time required to incorporate the information into GeoMap.

“The oil and gas industry holds the key to unlocking the speed, scale, and technological advancement that will raise geothermal out of obscurity and into the mainstream,” said Jamie Beard, Executive Director of Project InnerSpace. “It is our hope that in regions of the world with strong oil and gas industry expertise and presence, like South America, that GeoMap will drive sustained interest in this untapped and abundant energy source. We are excited by the knowledge that Petrobras contributed to supercharge GeoMap through this partnership.”

“GeoMap South America significantly expands our capacity to evaluate new geothermal opportunities, particularly in regions with limited or proprietary data. We look forward to leaning into GeoMap as we build our geothermal exploration strategy, and as we strengthen our technological standing and leadership in developing this massive, sustainable, and local resource.” said Anna Eliza Svartman, Basin Modeling Manager from Petrobras. GeoMap South America builds on earlier releases across Africa, North America, India, Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East, advancing a global effort to map geothermal opportunities and make next-generation geothermal data freely accessible.