On September 3, the U.S. Department of Energy announced the establishment of a Geothermal Energy Center of Excellence on the campus of the National Laboratory of the Rockies in Golden, Colorado. The center aims to coordinate research and collaboration among national laboratories, industry, and academic institutions to address the technical barriers limiting the large-scale deployment of geothermal energy.
The center is led by the National Laboratory of the Rockies, while the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) will operate and support the initiative. The campus site at South Table Mountain was selected because of its proximity to areas the department considers to have significant opportunities for geothermal energy development in the western United States.
A Research Network Extending Beyond a Single Laboratory
Participation will not be limited to the two founding laboratories. The department said the center will also draw on the expertise of Argonne, Brookhaven, Idaho, Los Alamos, Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Sandia laboratories.
The stated idea is to create a single gateway for the geothermal energy industry to access the scientific and engineering expertise available at the national laboratories. During the center’s launch event, representatives from the Department of Energy, the laboratories, and industry discussed its mission of making measurable progress toward large-scale geothermal electricity generation in the United States.
Industry Participation in Setting Priorities
The center includes an industry advisory council tasked with providing input on industry-relevant research needs, helping set the center’s priorities, and accelerating partnerships between companies and laboratories. Amanda Colker, director of the Geothermal Energy and Earth Sciences Program at the National Laboratory of the Rockies, believes that improving connections between laboratories and companies could direct research toward the areas with the greatest impact on accelerating the development of this sector.
Department officials said geothermal energy can provide reliable, around-the-clock power, and that investing in the capabilities of the national laboratories could help harness subsurface resources and expand U.S. energy production. These positions reflect the initiative’s objectives as presented by the source and do not constitute an announcement of a specific generation project or commercial timetable.
What Changes in Practice?
The fundamental change is the creation of a permanent coordination framework that brings together the expertise of multiple research institutions with industry needs, rather than addressing the sector’s challenges in a fragmented manner. This could be important for companies and researchers that need access to the national laboratories’ infrastructure or guidance in directing research toward technical obstacles with a direct impact.
However, the announcement does not yet specify which projects the center will fund, which technologies will receive priority, or the performance indicators and timetable for measuring results. Therefore, the initiative’s practical value remains tied to the research programs, partnerships, and applicable outputs that the center will announce later. The center is one of four centers of excellence established by the Department of Energy’s Office of Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy to strengthen collaboration with industry, national laboratories, federal partners, and academia.