WorldWide Drilling Resource

23 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® NOVEMBER 2020 Advancing Technology for Geothermal Projects Adapted from Information by the U.S. Department of Energy Five geothermal research projects in the U.S. will receive $28 million from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to explore the advancement of next-generation geothermal energy technologies. Three projects, totalling up to $10.4 million, were selected under the Geothermal Wells of Opportunity Funding Opportunity Announcement, and support research and development (R&D) which complements the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) initiative. The FORGE initiative targets cutting-edge research, drilling, and technology testing to identify a replicable, commercial pathway to enhanced geothermal systems (EGS). The projects selected are: ] Cyrq Energy, Inc. will use a combination of several stimulation technologies to improve the permeability of a well at the Patua Geothermal Field in Churchill County, Nevada, to boost electricity generation at the power plant. ] Ormat Nevada, Inc. will sequentially stimulate three wells at three separate operating geothermal fields in Nevada to conduct a comparative analysis of similar stimulations in different geologic environments and increase production. ] The University of Oklahoma will lead a diverse team to stimulate multiple zones of interest in a well at the Coso Geothermal Field in Inyo County, California, using innovative packers to achieve zonal isolation for improving production. R&D conducted through these projects will improve the tools, technologies, and methods used to explore, identify, access, create, and manage EGS resources. The two remaining projects, totalling up to $17.5 million, were selected under the FY 2020 Geothermal Technologies Office Hydrothermal and Low Temperature Multi-Topic Funding Opportunity. The topic area 1 project will help decrease the costs and risks associated with locating hidden geothermal systems, while the topic area 2 project will enhance energy system resilience through geothermal district heating and cooling applications. Topic Area 1: The University of Nevada at Reno is attempting to fast-track the discovery of hidden geothermal systems in the Great Basin region in the Western United States, by combining play fairway analysis, machine learning, advanced geostatistics, and other analytical techniques, into a comprehensive exploration toolkit. Topic Area 2: Cornell University will drill an exploratory borehole to measure, test, and verify the university’s version of an EGS system called Earth Source Heat with innovative district heat pumps. The goal is to prove this system could be a viable option on the campus and to demonstrate the scalability of this technology to other facilities. These projects support the goals of the DOE’s GeoVision study which identifies key steps to unlocking geothermal power as a reliable source of affordable energy. Improving technologies in these areas could increase geothermal power generation nearly 26-fold, reaching 60 gigawatts by 2050. GEO

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