BEIJING - China is expected to more than triple geothermal power consumption by 2020 to 72.1 million tons of coal equivalent from the current level, an expert said Monday.

China consumed about 20 million tons of coal equivalent of geothermal resources for heating, power generation and other uses in 2015, said Cao Yaofeng, an academician of the China Engineering Academy, at a summit on sustainable development.

By 2020, geothermal power will likely account for about 1.5 percent of the country's total energy consumption, Cao said, helping to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 177 million tonnes.

In 2014, the amount of hot dry rock, the most abundant source of geothermal energy, on the Chinese mainland was estimated to be the equivalent of 860 trillion tons of standard coal, or 260,000 times China's annual energy consumption that year.