U.S. Department of Energy Awards $280 Million for Next-Generation Geothermal Power Plants

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced on Monday the distribution of $280 million in federal grants from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to finance the engineering and construction of five commercial-scale enhanced geothermal energy (EGS) facilities across Utah, Nevada, and California.

The initiative, managed through the DOE's Geothermal Technologies Office, aims to demonstrate that deep-subsurface horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies pioneered in oil and gas extraction can be safely repurposed to unlock limitless, carbon-free 24/7 baseload electricity from deep hot-rock formations.

Unlocking 24/7 Baseload Clean Electricity Unlike solar and wind power, which fluctuate with weather and daylight, enhanced geothermal systems circulate water through fractured hot crystalline rock miles below the surface, extracting high-temperature steam to drive electrical turbines continuously.

Energy officials project that the five funded demonstration facilities will collectively supply over 400 megawatts of firm clean power to the Western grid by 2028, enough to power more than 300,000 homes while providing zero-emission capacity for emerging artificial intelligence data centers and industrial manufacturing clusters.

Western State Pilot Locations Selected project sites include:

• Beaver County, Utah: A 120-megawatt deep EGS facility integrating multi-stage horizontal wells.
• Churchill County, Nevada: A 90-megawatt plant connecting directly to regional transmission lines serving Northern Nevada.
• Imperial Valley, California: An 85-megawatt combined geothermal and mineral brine extraction system.
• Humboldt County, Nevada: A 60-megawatt commercial pilot utilizing advanced distributed fiber-optic acoustic temperature sensing.
• Inyo County, California: A 45-megawatt high-temperature dry-rock generation hub.

Union Labor and Oilfield Workforce Transition The grant agreements require participating energy developers to execute Project Labor Agreements with local building trades unions and prioritize hiring displaced oil and gas drillers, machinists, and geophysicists whose core mechanical skills translate directly to geothermal well construction.