Legal Regulations System in the Implementation Process of Geothermal District Heating Investments

Geothermal investments change both the natural and the built environment. They affect water resources under the Earth’s surface as well as the natural landscape itself. Regulations of authority permit procedures apply to various subunits of the environment and occur at certain stages of the investment. This paper examines how transparent and consistent regulations are as well as what difficulties the investors could have during the different authorisation processes, which could influence the implementation of the project. Process analysis was used to examine domestic and international regulatory practices. We examine the stages where the required authorisation procedures for the construction of geothermal investments occur in the implementation process and what role the individual permits play in the process of the investment. The research found that the authorization process is extremely long and very complicated.