News

Potter Drilling receives state grant of US$380,000 from California Energy Commission

Alexander Richter 9 Dec 2009

In the recent two years, Potter Drilling has raised private money, federal stimulus money, and now, state money from the California Energy Commission.

Reported locally, “Potter Drilling has shown its possible to appeal to all types of checkbooks. In the past two years the company has raised private money, federal stimulus money, and now, state money.

Redwood City-based Potter Drilling is developing new drilling technologies that will allow geothermal engineers to drill faster, cheaper and deeper into the earth’s surface to tap geothermal power that is inaccessible today or that costs to much to reach. The San Francisco Business Times wrote about the company as part of a larger story on Bay Area companies developing enhanced geothermal technologies in January.

Potter Drilling got $4 million from Google.org in 2008, then was awarded $5 million — the maximum amount for the category for which it applied — in federal stimulus money through the D.O.E’s advanced geothermal technologies program Oct. 29.

Today the California Energy Commission issued a list of “proposed” awardees for its Public Interest Energy Research Program, with Potter Drilling the only awardee among five applications. The CEC indicated it would grant the company $380,000.

Jared Potter, CEO of Potter Drilling, said the company would use the money to offset a portion of the matching funds required by the stimulus award.

“It was really good news to get that proposal funded from the D.O.E and there was a fair number of them,” said Potter. “Several are working on drilling related technologies, like harder bits… but I think ours was the only one working on really novel drilling technology.”

Potter Drilling just purchased a drilling rig that will allow it to drill test holes using its technologies. It plans to begin its first test within the next six months. The first bore hole will reach a depth of 1,000 feet, but Potter said the technology is designed to reach up to 30,000 feet. The company is planning three tests in all and will test and imprvoe the technology in the lab between each test.

“But I feel pretty confident that first test will work pretty well,” Potter said.”

Source: San Francisco Business Times