Asset Management Intern

DOE opens Geothermal Center of Excellence in Golden, Colorado to target gigawatt-scale output. The U.S. Department of Energy launched its Geothermal Center of Excellence at an in-person event hosted at the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) campus in Golden, Colorado, bringing together DOE leadership and staff, NLR and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) leadership, laboratory staff, and industry to advance the center's vision and priorities. The launch took place on Sept. 3. The launch marks the federal government's most direct institutional commitment yet to scaling domestic geothermal power beyond its current niche foothold on the grid. What the center will do. Established by the Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office (HGEO), the center will unite expertise and world-class capabilities from across DOE's national laboratories to accelerate the discovery and development of gigawatt-scale geothermal energy, resource discovery, and commercial development. It is located on the NLR campus in Golden, Colorado, and is led by NLR and enabled by NETL. Nine other national laboratories will support the work. The new center is at NLR's South Table Mountain Campus in Golden, Colorado, strategically located near the areas of greatest geothermal opportunity in the western United States. About a dozen federal employees from the department's hydrocarbons and geothermal energy office are assigned to the site, with contractors across the lab network. The center will support DOE's goals by driving innovation and serving as industry's main entry point to the national laboratories. An invitation-only Industry Advisory Board will provide objective insight into industry-relevant geothermal research needs, accelerate industry-lab partnerships, and advise on center priorities. By connecting industry stakeholders with laboratory capabilities and facilities, the center aims to help address priority technical barriers and cost-effectively scale and accelerate widespread geothermal deployment. Federal funding and near-term project signals. DOE had already announced a funding opportunity of up to $171.5 million for next-generation geothermal field tests as well as characterization and confirmation drilling for geothermal resources. Haustveit said awards are due in the coming weeks and that an enhanced geothermal project in Utah would add 100 megawatts to the grid "in the coming weeks." That funding notice is consistent with how the department has structured earlier geothermal support, including a $14 million pilot to convert a Pennsylvania shale gas well to geothermal power. Assistant Secretary of Energy Kyle Haustveit, who delivered opening remarks at the September 3 launch, told reporters that "a private-public partnership is what we need to unlock at scale geothermal." He said the center would leverage the national laboratories' scientific and engineering expertise in partnership with industry to unlock gigawatt-scale power generation, expand American energy production, and deliver more affordable, reliable, and secure energy to the American people. Industry backdrop: first commercial EGS nearing operation. The center opens as Fervo Energy's Cape Station project in Milford, Utah, is on track to send power to the grid next month, which would make it the first enhanced geothermal system in the U.S. to reach commercial operation. Fresh off a May IPO that raised nearly $2 billion, Fervo Energy is developing the multi-phase Cape Station geothermal development located in Beaver County, Utah, northeast of Milford. Phase I is on track to begin delivering clean power to the grid by late 2026, reaching approximately 100 megawatts of operating capacity by early 2027. Phase II is targeted for 2028. Southern California Edison has agreed to buy 320 megawatts of geothermal power from Cape Station under two 15-year power purchase agreements. Fervo's chief executive Tim Latimer attended the Golden launch event alongside representatives from Ormat Technologies and DOE leadership, underscoring the degree to which the new center is intended to serve as a bridge between federal research capacity and operating developers. Earlier this year, PNNL, Fervo, and NVIDIA built an AI digital twin to manage geothermal reservoirs in real time, demonstrating how deeply the lab-industry partnership model has already taken root. Scale ambitions and the resource case. Geothermal energy's ability to provide an around-the-clock, low-emissions source of power is attracting renewed attention as global electricity demand rises and power systems place a growing premium on firm supply. Despite that interest, geothermal energy still supplies less than one percent of global electricity demand, according to the IEA, even as countries like Kenya and Iceland have achieved widespread adoption. Combining new drilling and materials technologies with real-time downhole sensor data has cut well costs by up to 30 percent and may extend asset lifetimes beyond 25 years. If project costs continue to decline, the IEA predicts that geothermal energy could meet 15 percent of the growth in global electricity demand between 2024 and 2050. The new center in Golden is designed to compress that timeline by giving companies a single, organized gateway into the full breadth of the national laboratory system's drilling, reservoir, and materials science capabilities. Hugo Rojas is the editor of GCN. With a Master of Science in Engineering, he specializes in technology, data, and science, and brings a human-centered perspective informed by psychology.

Fervo targets October start for potential first U.S. Commercial enhanced-geothermal plant. Cape Station's planned grid delivery is the nearer proof point for an engineered power source that Fervo hopes to scale for utilities and data centers. The audio brief. About 1:35 Read transcript Story brief. 3 key points Fervo Energy is aiming to bring a 33 MW enhanced-geothermal plant at Utah's Cape Station online in October, potentially establishing the first U.S. commercial project using engineered underground reservoirs. The milestone would validate operations, not yet economics: Cape Station Phase I drilling costs are about $7,000/kW, versus Fervo's $5,500/kW Phase II target and $3,000/kW long-term goal. Google's 396 MW power... * 01 Cape Station Phase I wells averaged 21 days to reach 14,483 feet, versus 70 days for Fervo's Nevada pilot wells. * 02 Google's 396 MW agreement is expected to start in 2028; an option could raise its Cape Station offtake near 1 GW. * 03 Phase II plants are planned at 50 MW and designed to take more than 30% less time to build. Fervo Energy is targeting October grid delivery from Cape Station near Milford, Utah. If it reaches that target, the project would become the first enhanced-geothermal system in the United States to reach commercial operation - a key test of whether engineered underground heat can become a reliable new power source at scale. Building a reservoir in hot rock. Traditional geothermal projects depend on naturally occurring underground reservoirs. Fervo's enhanced-geothermal approach creates its own: it drills paired injection and production wells more than two miles deep, including horizontal sections that can extend more than a mile, then fractures the surrounding rock to make a route for water to circulate. * Water moves down an injection well, heats underground at temperatures above 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and returns through a separate production well. * A heat exchanger turns that heat into electricity; cooled geothermal brine is reinjected underground in a closed-loop system. * The method adapts oil-and-gas drilling and hydraulic-fracturing techniques for harder rock, hotter temperatures and longer-lived wells. A small plant before a much larger commitment. The October milestone concerns a 33 MW first plant, not the larger Cape Station supply agreement Fervo signed with Google. Fervo's Phase II plants are designed for 50 MW and, through standardized parts and designs, are expected to take more than 30% less time to build. Google agreed to buy 396 MW from Cape Station in a deal Fervo expects to begin supplying in 2028. The carbon-free power is intended as a building block for a potential Utah data center. Google also has an option to add about 600 MW by June 2030, potentially bringing its offtake to nearly 1 GW; final data-center plans remain subject to engineering feasibility, approvals and commercial conditions. Commercial operation is not yet cost competitiveness. Fervo reported drilling costs of about $7,000 per kilowatt for Cape Station Phase I. It targets $5,500 per kilowatt for Phase II and $3,000 per kilowatt over the longer term. Geothermal remains more expensive than other power sources even with federal tax credits, making those reductions central to the company's scale-up case. Fervo says it will use repeatable well development, standardized plants and established oil-and-gas supply chains to expand. It raised nearly $2 billion in its May 2026 initial public offering for that effort. Reaching commercial operation in October would mark a meaningful start, but Phase II must still demonstrate the planned reductions in cost and construction time. Editorial analysis Our Read. The strategic distinction is between a power contract and a repeatable supply system. Google's 396 MW agreement creates prospective demand for a later Cape Station buildout. October is a narrower but more immediate test: whether Fervo can move enhanced geothermal into commercial operation. Success would not settle the next question - whether standardized drilling and plants can meet the company's cost targets as capacity grows. The evidence to watch is on-time grid delivery, followed by Phase II drilling costs and construction time. Sources. * globenewswire.comFervo Energy and Google Sign 396 MW PPA * cnbc.comThis enhanced geothermal project aims to unlock gigawatts of power to fuel the data center boom Discussion. 0 comments Add your perspective. Add up to two screenshots or examples (JPG, PNG, WebP; 5 MB each). Explain what they show and how they relate to the story in at least 10 words. Remove private information. Images and visible text are checked before publication. Link directly to a video or code example on YouTube, Vimeo, Loom, GitHub, Gist, CodePen, CodeSandbox, or Hugging Face Spaces. Explain its connection to this story. No product pages, advertising, referral links, or website addresses in comments. Comments publish automatically after checks for abuse, repetition, and promotion. Repeated violations lead to temporary restrictions. Your name, comment, images, and demo link will be public when the comment passes automatic checks. Your email and individual poll choices stay private. Share work you have permission to share and disclose any affiliation. Reader comments. Newest comments first. Replies stay oldest first. Be the first to share a perspective or an experience.