Berlin - Italian projects to generate electricity using the heat of the Earth's crust are set to gain in value from a seminar for corporate investors at next week's Hanover Fair in Germany.

Wolf Michael Kuehne, a lawyer who specializes in setting up renewable-energy business projects, said Friday from his Milan office that projects normally began with a land-owner obtaining a geo-thermal energy permit for a site, then selling this to investors.

Beginning at 2 per cent, Italy has been gradually increasing the mandatory fraction of renewable power in its energy mix.

Corporate investors are keen to acquire sites where deep, hot rock heats water to steam, which can be piped to the surface to drive electricity turbines. Tuscany is Italy's top geothermal region. An approved project can make a block of land much more valuable.

"The greater the overall interest, the more the prices rise," said Kuehne, a partner in law firm DLA Piper who will return to his native Germany to speak at the seminar in Hanover, northern Germany on Tuesday.

Senior figures in Italy's geothermal industry federation will also address the half-day event. German export officials are subsidizing the seminar to attract manufacturers of geothermal equipment too.

As far as he knew, it was the first presentation in Germany at such a high level about the Italian opportunities, Kuehne said.

The Italian Chamber of Commerce in Germany, organizer of the event, said Italy had effectively invented the industrial exploitation of geothermal energy, now used in many nations.

Producing 800 megawatts from 60 geothermal power sites, Italy was the leader in Europe in the sector.

Other Italian regions with hot rock include Emilia-Romagna, Latium and Campania.

Plant owners can not only sell the electricity to the national grid at the market price, but also obtain a bounty from conventional electricity companies that do not own renewable energy plants.

Known as "green certificates," these bounties can be bought and sold at a price set by the market.

Kuehne noted that interest in building geothermal energy plants or photovoltaic plants using energy from the sun has been growing because local opposition is making it more difficult to build new wind turbines in places such as Sardinia. (dpa)