US Earmarks $60MM for First Selections under Grant for Advanced Geothermal

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) has selected three projects for potential funding of up to $60 million in the first rollout of a financing program for the demonstration of the viability of advanced geothermal energy.

Chevron Corp. has been picked for a project in Sonoma County of California that will use innovative drilling and stimulation methods to derive energy near an existing geothermal field. Fervo Energy Co. has been chosen for a project within Utah’s Milford Renewable Energy Corridor and adjacent to the DOE’s Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy laboratory that aims to produce at least 8.0 megawatts (MW) of power from each of three wells. In a work that “will help advance the science needed to operate in extreme heat conditions”, Mazama Energy hopes to build the first superhot enhanced geothermal system (EGS)—with temperatures above 375 degrees Celsius (707 Fahrenheit)—on the western flank of Oregon’s Newberry Volcano, the DOE said in a news release Tuesday.

“While underground heat exists everywhere, many locations lack adequate water or conditions that facilitate fluid flow necessary to recover that heat energy. In those cases, EGS can be used to create a humanmade underground reservoir to tap that heat for energy”, it said about the federal campaign to commercially scale up EGS..

Chevron had conventional geothermal assets that required ideal conditions of heat, fluid and permeability but is now focused on new technologies that overcome geological and subsurface limitations, according to the San Ramon, California-based company. “With the novel geothermal technologies, such as advanced closed loop and enhanced geothermal, we can simulate the right conditions, allowing us to harness the Earth’s heat from almost anywhere closer to the customer”, it said in a blog post September 13. Chevron is working with Sonoma Clean Power, the public power provider in Mendocino and Sonoma, on potential geothermal projects in the two counties, according to Chevron’s “2023 Climate Change Resilience Report”.

Meanwhile Fervo published Monday drilling results from its 400 MW project in Utah that it said “exceed the Department of Energy’s expectations for enhanced geothermal systems”. Of seven wells it drilled in the Cape Station project, Fervo achieved the fastest completion in 21 days, hailing the application of oil and gas drilling technology to geothermal energy.

“This increase in drilling efficiency has translated into significant cost reductions, with drilling costs across the first four horizontal wells at Cape falling from $9.4 million to $4.8 million per well”, Houston, Texas-based Fervo said in a press release.

The company added, “Fervo used polycrystalline diamond compact drill bits typically deployed in shale basins to cut through hard, abrasive granite, while mud coolers counteracted high subsurface temperatures that have historically derailed geothermal exploration”.

The DOE said the three projects “will demonstrate the potential for geothermal energy to provide reliable, cost-effective electricity to tens of millions of U.S. homes and businesses and help deliver on the President’s goal of 100 percent clean electricity by 2035”.

The projects, the first round of selections under the EGS Pilot Demonstrations grant offer, will also support the DOE’s target of cutting the cost of EGS generation by 90 percent to $45 per MW hour by 2035, it added.

“These projects will help us advance geothermal power, including into regions of the country where this renewable resource has never before been used”, Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm said in a statement.

Geothermal sources currently account for about 4.0 gigawatts (GW) of US electricity generation, the DOE noted. But in an earlier analysis it said the country could potentially reach 90 GW of installed domestic geothermal capacity by 2050. The analysis included “modeling assumptions reflecting recent technology advances and uses updated estimates of EGS resource potential”, the DOE said in a report January 25.

The three selections now proceed to negotiations with the DOE before awards are finalized.

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