Fervo Reaches Milestone Using Oil Drilling Tech for Geothermal

Houston-based geothermal startup Fervo Energy has successfully completed a well test to confirm the commercial viability of using oil and gas drilling technology for geothermal energy, the company said in a news release Tuesday.

The 30-day well test, a standard for geothermal, achieved a flow rate of 63 liters per second at high temperature that enables 3.5 megawatts (MW) of electric production, setting new records for both flow and power output from an enhanced geothermal system, according to the release. The test was done at Fervo Energy’s full-scale commercial pilot, dubbed Project Red, in northern Nevada.

“By applying drilling technology from the oil and gas industry, we have proven that we can produce 24/7 carbon-free energy resources in new geographies across the world”, Fervo CEO Tim Latimer said. “The incredible results we share today are the product of many years of dedicated work and commitment from Fervo employees and industry partners, especially Google.”

According to the news release, Fervo and Google signed the world’s first corporate agreement to develop next-generation geothermal power in 2021, aiming to power Google’s Cloud region in Las Vegas with an “always-on”, carbon-free resource that will reduce the company’s hourly reliance on fossil fuels.

Fervo said it is the first company to successfully drill a horizontal well pair for commercial geothermal production, achieving lateral lengths of 3,250 feet, reaching a temperature of 191 degrees Celsius, and “proving controlled flow through rigorous tracer testing”, while completing the project without any incidents.

The data collected through the course of the pilot will “enable rapid advancement in geothermal deployment”, Fervo said. The company plans for its next horizontal well to reach more than double the power output of the pilot design.

“Achieving our goal of operating on 24/7 carbon-free energy will require new sources of firm, clean power to complement variable renewables like wind and solar,” Google Senior Director for Energy and Climate Michael Terrell said. “We partnered with Fervo in 2021 because we see significant potential for their geothermal technology to unlock a critical source of 24/7 carbon-free energy at scale, and we are thrilled to see Fervo reach this important technical milestone.”

The pilot results support the findings of the USA Department of Energy’s (DOE) Enhanced Geothermal Earthshot, Fervo said. The Enhanced Geothermal Earthshot initiative aims to bring enhanced geothermal systems to the country by reducing its cost by 90 percent to $45 per megawatt-hour by 2035. Fervo added that geothermal energy could supply over 20 percent of USA power needs and complement wind and solar to reach a fully decarbonized grid.

“Power systems modeling confirms that geothermal can be a critical player in a fully decarbonized grid. Fervo’s successful commercial pilot takes next-generation geothermal technology from the realm of models into the real world and starts us on a path to unlock geothermal’s full potential”, Jesse Jenkins, Assistant Professor and leader of the Zero-carbon Energy systems Research and Optimization (ZERO) lab at Princeton University, said in the news release.

Devon Energy is also an investor in Fervo, having invested $10 million earlier in April. In 2021, Fervo was one of the 17 projects selected by the DOE to receive a cumulative $46 million in funding, in line with its Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy Initiative at the University of Utah.

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