Geothermal Technology Achieves Milestone of Generating 3.5 Megawatts of Carbon-Free Energy
Fervo Energy has announced a significant advancement in geothermal technology. After conducting a 30-day well test in northern Nevada, the company has successfully achieved a remarkable “flowrate of 63 liters per second at high temperature,” allowing for the generation of 3.5 megawatts of electricity. This test has set new records for flow and power output in an enhanced geothermal system (EGS), and importantly, it was completed without any issues.
A megawatt can power about 750 homes at once. Fervo is expected to bring Project Red online this year. It will be used to power Google’s data centers and some of the rest of the company’s infrastructure in Nevada. In 2021, Google and Fervo signed an agreement to develop a “next generation geothermal electricity project”.
This is the first time an energy company has demonstrated that EGS can work on a commercial scale, according to Bloomberg. The journey to this point has been long, as researchers have been trying to make EGS a reality since the 1970s.
For a natural geothermal system to generate electricity, it needs a combination of heat, fluid and rock permeability, as Bloomberg points out. In many areas, the rock has the required heat level, but not enough to allow fluid to flow through it.
EGS creates this permeability artificially by drilling deep underground and injecting fluid to create fractures in the rock. This approach can significantly increase the number of possible locations for a geothermal power plant.
Fervo says it is the first company to “successfully drill a pair of horizontal wells for commercial geothermal production, achieving lateral lengths of 3,250 feet, achieving temperatures of 191°C and demonstrating controlled flow through rigorous tracer testing.”
One of the biggest advantages of geothermal power plants is that they are completely carbon-free – Google’s goal is to run all of its offices and data centers on carbon-free energy by 2030. These plants can also operate at any time (unlike solar and wind plants). ), which makes geothermal energy a compelling renewable energy source. However, according to Tim Latimer, CEO of Fervo, cost savings and administrative bureaucracy are obstacles to making EGS more widely available.
The company hopes to repeat its success in Utah. If Fervo sees similar results there and successfully implements design upgrades to maximize output, the site is expected to produce enough electricity to power 300,000 homes simultaneously, Latimer said. That’s about a quarter of all housing in Utah.
“Achieving the goal of 24/7 carbon-free energy requires new sources of stable, clean energy to complement variable renewables like wind and solar,” Michael Terrell, Google’s director of energy and climate, said in a statement. “We partnered with Fervo in 2021 because we see significant potential in their geothermal technology to unlock a critical 24/7 carbon-free energy source at scale, and we’re excited to see Fervo achieve this important technical milestone.”
