Speaker: Daniel Cohan, Ph. D., Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice University

Geothermal energy has for decades provided less than 1% of U.S. electricity, with output constrained to regions with hydrothermal resources. Recent advances in drilling technologies have made it possible to extract deep resources of heat that are available in far more regions. Power plants using such resources, known as enhanced geothermal systems, remain in the early stages of deployment, with cost projections that are highly uncertain. We have used three costing models to estimate the costs of geothermal power plants and developed curves of potential cost reductions through 2050. We applied those cost projections in the Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) capacity expansion model to simulate deployments of geothermal and other resources under various cost and policy scenarios. We find that widespread deployment of geothermal electricity would require steep reductions in costs, similar to those sought by the Department of Energy’s Enhanced Geothermal Shot initiative, along with strong policy support.