DOE awards $11.4M to advance geothermal energy development

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will award nearly $11.4 million to seven projects to advance geothermal energy development.

The projects will look to accelerate the research and development (R&D) of geothermal energy technologies. Currently, geothermal electricity production is located entirely in the western states, where geothermal resources put about 3.8 gigawatts (GW) of electricity on the grid. However, it has the potential to expand through hydrothermal and enhanced geothermal systems, which could tap into an estimated 100 GW of resources that are currently inaccessible.

“Geothermal energy is a clean and efficient base-load energy resource, making it an important part of our nation’s diverse energy portfolio,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said. “Developing new, efficient drilling technologies will reduce these costs and increase the availability of this domestic renewable energy resource.”

To tap into these resources, technological innovation is necessary. The awarded projects will focus on identifying methods to accelerate the transfer of geothermal drilling and related technologies from the laboratory to the marketplace.

The seven projects selected for these grants include the Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Illinois; General Electric Company, GE Global Research in Niskayuna, New York; Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma; Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico (which got two grants); Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station in College Station, Texas; and the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma.