$338 Million in Recovery Act Funding to Support Geothermal Energy

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced on Thursday awards of $338 million in Recovery Act funding for the development domestic geothermal energy.

The grants will be used to support 123 projects in 39 states for the exploration and development of new geothermal fields and research into advanced geothermal technologies. Also, the grants will support the deployment and creative financing approaches for ground source heat pump demonstration projects across the country.

Grant recipients include private industry, academic institutions, tribal entities, local governments, and DOE’s National Laboratories. The DOE said the grants will be matched more than one-for-one with an additional $353 million in private and non-Federal cost-share funds.

“The United States is blessed with vast geothermal energy resources, which hold enormous potential to heat our homes and power our economy,” said DOE Secretary Steven Chu. “These investments in America's technological innovation will allow us to capture more of this clean, carbon free energy at a lower cost than ever before. We will create thousands of jobs, boost our economy and help to jumpstart the geothermal industry across the United States.”

The DOE said that the projects supported by Recovery Act funding "will represent a dramatic expansion of the U.S. geothermal industry and will create or save thousands of jobs in drilling, exploration, construction, and operation of geothermal power facilities and manufacturing of ground source heat pump equipment."

The projects selected for negotiation of awards fall into six categories:

• Up to $98.1 million for "innovative exploration and drilling projects" - Twenty-four projects that focus on the the development of new geothermal fields using innovative sensing, exploration, and well-drilling techniques.

• Up to $20.7 million for "co-produced, geopressured, and low temperature projects" - Eleven projects for the development of new low-temperature geothermal fields, which the Energy Department says "is a vast but currently untapped set of geothermal resources" and includes geothermal heat found in the hundreds of thousands of oil and gas wells around the country.

• Up to $51.4 million for "enhanced geothermal systems demonstrations" - Three projects for the the exploration, drilling, and development of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) to validate power production from deep hot rock resources using innovative technologies and approaches.

• Up to $81.5 million for "enhanced geothermal systems components research and development / analysis" - Forty-five projects to focus on research and development of new technologies to find and drill into deep hot rock formations, stimulate enhanced geothermal reservoirs, and convert the heat to power.

• Up to $24.6 million for "geothermal data development, collection, and maintenance" - Three projects for the population of a comprehensive nationwide geothermal resource database to help identify and assess new fields.

• Up to $61.9 million for "ground source heat pump demonstrations" - Thirty-seven projects to demonstrate the deployment of ground source heat pumps for heating and cooling of a variety of buildings for a variety of customer types, including academic institutions, local governments and commercial buildings.

Source:
U.S. Department of Energy