The Utah Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) at the University of Utah is pleased to announce it has chosen 17 project selectee applications for negotiations for the FORGE Solicitation 2020-1. The selectees could receive a combined total of up to $46 million over the next three years.
“There is enormous untapped potential for enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) to provide clean and reliable electricity generation throughout the United States,” said Kathleen Hogan, assistant deputy undersecretary for science in the U.S. Department of Energy. “These investments in EGS research support President Biden’s mission to take on the climate crisis by pushing the frontiers of science and engineering and creating jobs in cutting-edge clean energy fields.”
Utah FORGE is a dedicated underground field laboratory sponsored by the U. S. Department of Energy’s Geothermal Technologies Office. It is working on developing, testing, and accelerating breakthroughs in EGS. Solicitation 2020-1 was the first formal call for research proposals on EGS technologies from the Utah FORGE Program. More information about Solicitation 2020-1 is available here.
“Utah FORGE looks forward to collaborating closely with the scientists and engineers of the project teams on technologies that will promote commercialization of this inexhaustible and non-polluting energy source,” said Joseph Moore, principal investigator of the project. “We were impressed with the caliber of all of the applicants who submitted proposals and anticipate additional solicitations in the future.”
The topic areas and the selectees include:
Title |
Selectees |
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Devices suitable for sectional (zonal) isolation along both cased and open-hole wellbores under geothermal conditions
|
Welltec PetroQuip Energy Services Colorado School of Mines |
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Estimation of stress parameters
|
Battelle Memorial Institute Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory University of Oklahoma |
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Field-scale characterization of reservoir stimulation and evolution over time, including thermal, hydrological, mechanical and chemical effects
|
Clemson University Stanford University Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Rice University |
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Stimulation and configuration of the well(s) at Utah FORGE
|
Fervo Energy Company University of Texas at Austin |
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Integrated Laboratory and Modeling studies of the interactions among thermal, hydrological, mechanical, and chemical processes |
Pennsylvania State University |
About Utah FORGE
The FORGE site is located near the town of Milford in Beaver County, Utah, on the western flank of the Mineral Mountains. Near-term goals are aimed at perfecting drilling, stimulation, injection-production and subsurface imaging technologies required to establish and sustain continuous fluid flow and energy transfer from an EGS reservoir. For more information, please visit our website.