NLR highlights licensable technologies for deeper, more profitable geothermal drilling
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The National Laboratory of the Rockies have highlighted three licensable technologies that can enable more reliable and economical deep geothermal drilling.
As part of its “Fast Lane” series, the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR, formerly NREL) has published a summary of three licensable technologies that could help access deeper geothermal resources through reliable and cost-optimized drilling. All three technologies are ready and available for use for geothermal companies.
The three technologies are as follows:
- A high-temperature alternator for localized power generation can perform reliably at temperatures of up to 500 ºF (260 ºC), making it a viable power source for BHAs when drilling high-temperature geothermal wells.
- Downhole sensors and electronics suitable for harsh thermal and mechanical environments can be combined into smart systems to record and transmit drilling data during high-temperature geothermal drilling.
- GEOPHIRES is a publicly available software modeling tool that help estimate capital, operations, and maintenance costs for prospective geothermal development sites. A notable case study of the use of the GEOPHIRES tool focuses on the 500-MW Cape Station project of Fervo Energy in Utah.
RELATED: NLR report chronicles US geothermal market growth trends from 2021 to 2025
Source: NLR