New Projects Will Analyze Geothermal’s Value to the Grid

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Geothermal (OG) has announced selections for its GRID initiative. The eight selected projects will receive up to a total of $9.5 million to quantify how geothermal power supports the U.S. electric grid, using advanced modeling and analysis tools.

Geothermal electricity generation provides significant grid benefits, including firm and flexible capacity and essential ancillary services such as load-balancing. Funding through GRID will help quantify the economic value of these benefits, supporting more accurate pricing of geothermal power and encouraging investment in geothermal development. Projects will also assess current geothermal representation and identify best practices to incorporate geothermal power in regional utility planning processes, model system integration impacts of geothermal power to specific regions of the U.S. grid, and apply metrics to evaluate the role of geothermal power in the grid.

The selected projects and their regional grid modeling locations are:

• Electric Power Research Institute, Inc. (Western U.S.)
• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (California)
• National Laboratory of the Rockies (Colorado and New Mexico)
• Ohio State University (PJM Region)
• Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Pacific Northwest)
• Princeton University (Western U.S.)
• University of Texas at Austin (Texas)
• Southern Methodist University (Texas)

Learn more about the GRID initiative.

Selection for award negotiations is not a commitment by DOE to issue an award or provide funding. Before funding is issued, DOE and the applicants will undergo a negotiation process, and DOE may cancel negotiations and rescind the selection for any reason during that time.