DOE launches Geothermal Center of Excellence to push U.S. geothermal toward gigawatt scale The U.S. Department of Energy has launched a new Geothermal Center of Excellence in Golden, Colorado, with a clear mandate: connect industry with the national labs, accelerate geothermal innovation, and help move the technology toward gigawatt-scale deployment. The center is part of DOE’s effort to position geothermal as a more competitive source of reliable baseload electricity in the United States. The announcement matters because it comes at a time when geothermal is gaining fresh attention from policymakers, developers, and power buyers, especially as data centers and industrial users look for firm clean electricity. DOE says the U.S. already leads the world in geothermal electricity capacity at just over 4 GW, but that current output represents only a fraction of the country’s technical potential. [1] Why DOE created it DOE says the new center is designed to become industry’s main entry...
Eavor Technologies achieved a significant breakthrough in December 2025 when its flagship closed‑loop geothermal project in Geretsried, Germany, began delivering electricity to the grid.
By: Robert Buluma
The Canadian startup had completed the first of four planned underground loops and intended to start construction on the second loop in early 2026. That timeline has now been revised.
The company encountered substantial engineering difficulties while drilling the initial wells, including borehole instability, slow penetration rates, equipment failures, and cement‑casing issues that allowed fluid to leak between parallel drilling rigs. Although Eavor resolved those problems, the setbacks increased both time and cost. As a result, the firm is now looking for new project partners and investors to help complete the next phase.
The Geretsried site, located south of Munich, was chosen precisely because it is geologically challenging. Previous conventional geothermal attempts there had failed because the rock was hot but dry, lacking natural water or steam reservoirs. Eavor’s closed‑loop technology, known as the Eavor‑Loop, does not rely on such reservoirs. Instead, it drills two vertical wells and connects them with horizontal lateral pairs, creating a sealed underground network that circulates a working fluid to extract heat through thermal conduction alone.
At full scale, the project is designed to supply 8.2 megawatts of electrical power and 64 megawatts of district heating, enough for roughly 36,000 households. The European Union’s Innovation Fund provided a €91.6 million grant, and additional financing came from international banks and investment funds. Total project costs have now exceeded €350 million.
The first loop was originally planned to include 12 lateral pairs, but drilling stopped at six after the cement‑casing problem on the motherbores was identified. Switching from two parallel rigs to a single‑rig operation doubled the time and expense for that loop, but it allowed the team to stabilise the wellbores and improve drilling performance. By adapting techniques and equipment, Eavor reduced average drilling time by more than 70 percent from the first lateral pairs to the last. The company also developed an active magnetic ranging system to improve precision when intersecting underground laterals.
Today, the first loop is producing about half a megawatt of power, which is in line with expectations for a loop of that size. However, that output is far below the project’s total design capacity, and after accounting for the plant’s own consumption, net power to the grid has been negligible. The company acknowledges that efficiency is currently low but expects it to improve as additional loops come online and operational learning accumulates.
The strategic response has been twofold. First, Eavor is stepping back from the role of project operator, returning to its core identity as a technology provider. It is actively seeking third‑party operators and investors to take over the Geretsried plant and complete the remaining loops. Second, the company has reorganised internally, reducing its workforce from about 147 to 80 employees, with cuts concentrated in operational roles that are no longer needed under the new model.
The second loop, originally scheduled to start this spring, has been postponed. The company intends to incorporate lessons from the first loop, including improved cementing design, more robust drilling practices, and better flow‑balancing techniques. While no new start date has been set, the firm remains committed to proving the technology and believes the delays are a natural part of first‑of‑a‑kind deployment.
Industry observers note that such setbacks are common when scaling new energy technologies. Enhanced geothermal systems, which use fracking to create artificial reservoirs, face their own trade‑offs, including seismic risks and water use. Closed‑loop systems avoid those issues entirely, making them attractive for urban and water‑scarce areas. However, they are currently more expensive and less heat‑efficient because the fluid does not directly contact the rock.
Eavor is not alone in pursuing closed‑loop geothermal. Other companies such as XGS Energy, GreenFire Energy, and Vero Geothermal are developing similar projects in the United States. Meanwhile, Fervo Energy is advancing a large‑scale enhanced geothermal project in Utah, with first power expected later this year. The broader geothermal industry is gaining momentum as countries seek reliable, carbon‑free baseload power to complement wind and solar.
The Geretsried project, despite its difficulties, has validated the core physics of the closed‑loop approach: heat can be extracted from dry rock, the fluid circulates without external pumping, and electricity can be generated. The remaining challenge is to improve cost and performance to commercial levels. Eavor’s leadership has stated that the “grand plan” remains unchanged, and that the company is now focused on coming down the learning curve and going deeper and hotter.
For the geothermal sector as a whole, transparency about setbacks is seen as critical. Sharing technical lessons helps other developers avoid similar pitfalls and sets realistic expectations about the timeline for commercial‑scale deployment. The Geretsried experience underscores that geothermal innovation, like all frontier energy technologies, requires patience, adaptive engineering, and sustained financial backing.
The search for new partners is ongoing. If successful, the project could still become a template for closed‑loop geothermal deployment worldwide. If not, it will remain a costly but instructive experiment – one that has already advanced the industry’s understanding of what it truly takes to drill, seal, and operate a deep, multi‑lateral heat‑extraction system. Either way, the path to unlocking geothermal energy anywhere is proving to be longer and more expensive than early proponents imagined – but the door, once opened, may still lead to a cleaner, more resilient energy future.
Source : Canary Media
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