The key advance in drilling — which accounts for up to 75 percent of project cost and 90 percent of capital cost — came from Fervo Energy at its project in Utah. In its 400 MW Cape Station campaign, Fervo drilled its fastest well in 21 days, a 70 percent reduction from a similar project in 2022. The company also nearly halved the cost to $4.8 million per well.
“Faster and more reliable drilling will speed up delivery and cut costs for geothermal projects” said Selene Law, Sr. Associate, Energy & Power at Cleantech Group, adding that geothermal has the potential to provide up to 17 percent of global energy needs and that advanced technologies would directly reduce risks by identifying optimal sites for drilling. “Increasing adoption of digital tools will enable better controls and real-time drilling data analysis, while new drilling methods, such as drilling with plasma or jets will increase drilling speed.”
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) says geothermal energy has the potential to provide up to 17 percent of global energy needs. Geothermal plants also enjoy multiple advantages. Besides the potential to operate them at nearly 90 percent load factor, they have lower operational costs than wind and solar photovoltaic and have minimal storage needs.
According to Ms Law, more geographies, such as Germany and other low enthalpy regions, will unlock geothermal power by 2030, as innovation from shallower depths helps to derisk geothermal drilling and penetration rates further improve. This should be underpinned by the rise in long-term offtake agreements from data centre operators and other users.
By 2050, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects demand for geothermal power to rise 15-fold to 1,400 MWh and geothermal heat to 1,600 MWh.
Other key findings include:
GA Drilling and EarthGrid are using high-voltage pulses or electric arcs to create intense heat and induce rock fracturing. Other innovation in drilling includes exposing the hole bottom to a high-pressure jet of steel shot particles, air, hydrogen, propane, or water. HammerDrum is testing robotics, while Cornish Lithium and others are co-locating geothermal heat production with production of lithium or other minerals to drive down costs.
France is aiming for global leadership in geothermal drilling, with an action plan that includes a proposed $150 million fund to be unveiled next month. The fund is double the size of incentives announced by the US for geothermal systems. Austria, Germany, New Zealand, the EU and Canada’s Alberta province are among others that are funding research in geothermal initiatives in a renewed push over the past few years.
Independent geothermal drilling companies and oil-and-gas (O&G) explorers share some synergies that still remain unleveraged. With the exception of Nabors Industries investing in GA Drilling, Equinor investing in Lithium De France, and BP investing in Eavor, few oil and gas companies have made direct investments in the geothermal sector. In fact, geothermal drillers face strong competition from oil and gas firms, which additionally hold a lot of critical patents that curb technology use. Still, mergers and acquisitions activity has picked up since the second half of 2023, and overall investment into geothermal has jumped to nearly $700 million since last year.
For additional information:
