“This industry has been reborn in the last few years and there is actual growth in the number of companies involved: we are now seeing more companies producing geothermal than five years ago, and more companies actively developing than there were two years ago,” said Karl Gawell, executive director of the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA), in Washington.

DOE’s Geothermal Program Rolls Out

DOE’s Geothermal Technology Program (GTP) was strategically expanded in 2008 and won funding of $368 million under the Recovery Act. Although roughly $40 million a year has been applied to the program over the recent past, President Obama’s “Christmas wish list” to Congress included $101 million for 2012, according to Douglas Hollett, Washington-DC-based GTP manager. Within the broad GTP program — which includes dozens of technology projects, enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) is the primary development target.

“Hands down, EGS is the most promising geothermal technology under development today,” confirmed Tom Williams, the laboratory program manager for geothermal at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), in Golden, Colo. EGS reserves often require water injection, and in some cases, like Calpine’s Geysers facilities, municipal grey water is used to community advantage.

Hollett explained, “We now have seven EGS demonstration projects at various stages of activity in several states (including California, Idaho, Hawaii, Nevada and Oregon), and each is moving along with high hopes. The goal is to develop a five-megawatt pilot by 2020, which will be significant.” To get there, DOE is trying to solve a myriad of technology problems simultaneously. “Among technology targets, three leading problems are: the need for drilling faster and more efficiently; the need for better stimulation technology; and the need for high temperature electronics for work in bit steering or down hole measurements,” Hollett noted.

Indeed, many of the federal laboratories have geothermal projects underway. But at NREL, “the biggest thing we are working on is cooling systems for geothermal generators. At peak demand time, you can use some water at an otherwise dry-cooled unit and increase power output by 25 percent,” said Williams. “The project may move into a field test next year,” he said.

While the decade-long GTP program is aimed at establishing the commercial viability of geothermal power generation, the budget war in Washington leaves financial continuity a challenge. “Something we do on a daily basis is to fine-tune where our research dollars going; you could liken it to a financial portfolio in which you focus your efforts on the things that are working the best, balancing them with the things that have the biggest impact,” Hollett said.

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