Crews complete Phase 1 construction at Fervo Energy’s Cape Station geothermal power plant in Beaver County. Utah recently joined a four-state bipartisan consortium designed to facilitate rapid development of geothermal projects in the Mountain West. (Courtesy Fervo Energy)
The move toward geothermal energy generation is heating up — no pun intended.
A bipartisan coalition of four Mountain West states has joined a pair of nonprofits to form the Mountain West Geothermal Consortium. The new group has the stated objective to work on the policy and economics of fostering more successful geothermal projects.
The launch of the consortium was announced recently when Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado joined Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah via remote video for a news conference in Salt Lake City. The governors met with the press following an “energy superabundance” workshop as part of a meeting of the Western Governors Association. Polis is a Democrat and Cox is a Republican.
The consortium brings together governors, regulators and energy policy experts from those two states and their Mountain West neighbors, Arizona and New Mexico, along with staffing and operational help from two nonprofits, the Center for Public Enterprise and Constructive, both of which employ former Department of Energy staffers.
Regarded as a method of electrical generation that most can agree on, geothermal got another shot in the arm recently when leading geothermal company Fervo Energy announced it has raised almost $2 billion in an initial public offering. Fervo is developing two major enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) in Utah: the Cape Station project in Beaver County and Project Blanford in Millard County. Cape Station is considered Fervo’s flagship next-generation geothermal plant and is on track to become the world’s largest EGS, generating about 100 megawatts of operating capacity by 2027.
“The idea that we can unleash clean, affordable, dispatchable power — that’s kind of the Holy Grail, what we’ve all been chasing. And yet it’s a reality now in ways that it’s never been before.”
Gov. Spencer Cox“The idea that we can unleash clean, affordable, dispatchable power — that’s kind of the Holy Grail, what we’ve all been chasing. And yet it’s a reality now in ways that it’s never been before,” Cox said during the news conference.
Geothermal energy has made great strides recently, particularly in Utah. Circumventing traditional energy development limitations — especially in licensing and permitting — the technology relies on naturally occurring subterranean hot water and steam to turn turbines that generate electricity. Now, new drilling techniques and equipment are enabling developers to access heat in more locations and at greater depths than was previously possible.
The consortium was formed to help coordinate permitting, financing and power purchase agreements for geothermal projects, according to the governors. The activities might include assistance with permitting on state-level issues like water usage, attracting public dollars to geothermal projects, and upgrading geophysical data to guide geothermal development.
Michael O’Connor, a former Department of Energy official who was involved in geothermal development programs at the DOE, has been named director of the consortium.
“We think that the public sector should be a part of the capital stack, and so what we’re trying to do is build investment programs that leverage the states’ ability to provide the early concessionary capital and match that with private-sector capital,” O’Connor said. “The consortium has done a whole bunch of financial modeling around this, and we’re now working with energy offices to build that into actual programs where they can start funding.”
The Center for Public Enterprise, a think tank and consortium member that works on public policy issues, published a white paper earlier this year suggesting the formation of the group, stating that a coordinated effort among states could facilitate projects that have already demonstrated technological feasibility. The center’s paper suggested states “create new tools to support catalytic public investment in and financing for next-generation geothermal.”
“Utah is working to double power production over the next decade and build the energy capacity our state will need for generations. Geothermal energy is a crucial part of that future and Utah is proud to be a founding member of the Mountain West Geothermal Consortium,” Cox told climate change watchdog website Heatmap in a statement.
“Colorado is a national leader in renewable energy, and geothermal can provide always-on, clean, domestic energy to power our future,” a statement from Polis said. “Colorado is proud to partner on a bipartisan basis with states across the region to found the Mountain West Geothermal Consortium.”
Cox also cited projects like Utah FORGE (Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy), a laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy to develop and test geothermal technologies. Located near Milford, FORGE is managed by the University of Utah.
Cox also said universities and colleges could partner with the consortium to train the workforce that’s expected to work in the field.
Cox has recently suggested that geothermal energy could be a possible solution to the anticipated power needs of a controversial data center project proposed for Box Elder County.
“That’s why this is so important. It’s why I believe in this so strongly. It’s why we’ve been pushing it and other technologies that can help provide the same, again, affordable types of power that are clean, that people can rely on,” Cox said, “and we think that this is a solution to that project.”
