Fervo and Google geothermal power facility starts grid supply
The Blue Mountain geothermal power plant in Nevada (source: Google)
Carlo Cariaga
29 Nov 2023
The 3.5-MW geothermal power pilot project developed by Fervo Energy in partnership with Google has started supplying power to the local grid.
Google has announced that the 3.5 geothermal power project co-developed with Fervo Energy in northern Nevada in the US has officially started supplying power to the local grid. This grid also happens to supply the data centers of Google in Nevada.
The geothermal power facility in Nevada is the full-scale EGS pilot of Fervo Energy. A few months ago, Fervo announced successful results after drilling and stimulation, with the doublet able to support 3.5 MW of electricity production with a flowrate of 63 L/s at high temperature.
Google and Fervo announced their partnership back in 2021 with the aim of developing a next-generation geothermal power project. As part of their partnership, Google and Fervo Energy will jointly develop the use of AI and machine learning for geothermal energy production.
“We’re really hoping that this could be a springboard to much, much more advanced geothermal power available to us and others around the world,” commented Michael Terrell, Senior Director for Energy and Climate at Google.
Google considers geothermal a key part of reaching their goal of achieving carbon-free electricity supply in their operations and data centres by 2030.
Both partners are branching out from the initial pilot project in Nevada. Fervo had recently broken ground on the exploration drilling for a 400-MW next-generation geothermal energy project at Cape Station in Beaver County, Utah which targets power supply by 2026 and full-scale operations by 2028. Google had also announced a new partnership with Project InnerSpace with the aim of addressing critical challenges facing geothermal development, including the development of a global geothermal resource mapping and assessment tool.
