Comparisons of fix and variable costs for converting different forms of primary into electric energy performed by national and international agencies as well as by a major German electrical utility consented in concluding: geothermal electricity produced from natural steam or permeable hot water reservoirs is among the cheapest renewable forms of electricity. However, in years to come, geothermal electricity may find itself restricted to the limited number of regions worldwide which feature these particularly favorable reservoirs. This would exclude most of the continental land mass of the earth which is hot but lacks natural steam or hot water reservoirs. This is due to the current lack of proven technology for engineering man-made geothermal reservoirs where natural ones do not exist. At the same time, proven technologies for generating wind and solar electricity are readily available. This may turn out to be a serious competitive disadvantage for geothermal energy as fossil primary energies are being replaced by renewables. Therefore, dedicated and proactive funding of geothermal technology development is required at much larger scale than previously for making geothermal electricity competitively available almost everywhere.

由国家和国际机构以及德国一家主要的电力公司进行的将不同形式的一次电能转换为电能的固定成本和可变成本的比较得出结论：由天然蒸汽或可渗透热水储层产生的地热发电是最便宜的可再生能源之一电力形式。然而，在未来的几年中，地热发电可能会发现自己仅限于世界范围内以这些特别有利的水库为特征的有限区域。这将排除地球上大部分热的大陆土地，但缺少自然蒸汽或热水储集层。这是由于目前缺乏工程化的人造地热油藏的成熟技术，而天然油藏不存在。同时，成熟的产生风能和太阳能的技术很容易获得。事实证明，这对于地热能来说是一个严重的竞争劣势，因为化石一次能源已被可再生能源替代。因此，与以前相比，要使地热发电几乎可在任何地方竞争获得竞争，就需要比以前大得多的规模专门和积极的资金来发展地热技术。