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A team of researchers and industry participants predict a significant near-term energy contribution from enhanced geothermal projects, stating in a journal article that the technology could provide “stable baseload and potentially dispatchable electricity.” Enhanced geothermal projects could reach hundreds of megawatts in size and be deployed in “many more places” than conventional geothermal technology, as technological advances lead to near-term cost competitiveness, a journal article says. The review article “ Enhanced geothermal systems for clean firm energy production” was written by three researchers and three participants from the enhanced geothermal industry, and published in the journal Nature Reviews Clean Technology . Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) typically use a hydraulic fracturing technique developed for oil and gas production to fracture the hot layer of rock beneath the Earths surface. An injection well delivers water to the fractured rock, where it is heated, and a production well delivers the heated water to the surface, where it can be used to generate electricity, heat, or both. While traditional geothermal systems rely on the natural presence of a reservoir of hot water in permeable rock, EGS systems do not, so they could be used “in many more places,” the paper says. Cost reduction Technological advances, such as the use of compact polycrystalline diamond bits and multi-hole drilling rigs, are reducing drilling times and lowering EGS costs. As a result, “EGS is expected to be scalable to much larger projects (e.g., hundreds of megawatts of electricity) at a cost competitive with other sources of electricity.” The article highlights cost targets published by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in a 2024 report on new-generation geothermal energy. A fact sheet in that report says that “technical advances could reduce costs to $60-$70 per MWh by 2030, offering profit margins of $10-$30 per MWh at current prices. These reductions would put advanced geothermal on track to meet the DOE goal of $45/MWh by 2035.” The authors say the DOE report suggests that EGS is on track to achieve near-term energy costs competitive with other clean, robust energy sources. Flexible supply The authors note that flexible generation using EGS could help balance intermittent renewable generation. Some conventional geothermal plants already operate in dispatchable mode, such as one in Hawaii. “Due to the higher degree of control possible over EGS injector-producer well pairs” compared to conventional geothermal systems, “EGS is expected to be able to flexibly dispatch electricity.” Risk of seismic activity “Induced seismicity” from hydraulic fracturing “is an important issue for EGS,” the authors say, as earthquakes associated with EGS development “may affect social acceptance and risk losing a project’s social license to operate.” Fervo Energy, which has developed a large-scale commercial EGS pilot project in Northern Nevada, says the project was completed without generating any seismic activity, and that the company has implemented a DOE-mandated seismicity mitigation protocol following best practices. The papers six authors are based at Stanford University, Electricite de Strasbourg (France), the California-based consultancy ResFrac, Fervo Energy and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. |
