Office of Geothermal

The Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office’s (HGEO’s) Office of Geothermal leads and supports research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) to accelerate the discovery and development of gigawatt-scale geothermal energy and position geothermal as a competitive domestic source for reliable baseload electricity generation.​

The Office of Geothermal supports HGEO’s goals through the following objectives:

• Expand and improve resource characterization and advance the most economic opportunities for development. 
• Drive innovations that accelerate new geothermal development and optimization. 
• Modernize and extend the life of existing geothermal production.
• Pursue methods to use and maximize the value of geothermal for storage and enhancing grid reliability.

The Office of Geothermal includes three divisions aligned with industry: 1) Research and Development, 2) Pilots and Demonstrations, and 3) Commercial Scale-Up. 

Research and Development

• Exploration and Characterization:​ Develop and deploy advanced geophysical tools and inversion methods, integrated characterization workflows, and AI-driven sensing tools or analysis methods to lower exploration costs and increase success rates of exploration wells​.
• Subsurface Accessibility:​ Increase drilling speed and reduce materials costs. Partner with oil and gas service companies to adapt technologies and workflows for high-temperature, hard-rock environments. ​
• Power Conversion Efficiency: ​Research and development to improve Organic Rankine Cycle power conversion efficiency as well as pump efficiency and reliability and reduce head losses across the full circulation system.​
• Post-Power:​ Assess opportunities for rare earth elements and critical materials extraction from geothermal brines. 

Pilots and Demonstrations

• Demonstrations and Pilot: Manage Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) projects, as well as cost-share pilots for pre-commercial-scale enhanced geothermal systems deployments in new geologies and structural environments.
• Reservoir Engineering and Thermal Energy Storage: Improve fracturing techniques for enhanced geothermal systems and thermal cycling protocols for thermal energy storage.

Commercial Scale-Up

• Permitting:​ Identify and enact new methods to accelerate and streamline the permitting process.
• Data Innovation and Modeling:​ Manage all modeling associated with geothermal power and storage uptake, leverage projects’ subsurface data to further improve modeling capabilities, and manage the Geothermal Data Repository.
• Grid Valuation, Markets, and Offtake:​ Analyze and assess the value of geothermal electricity generation to the grid, including ancillary services. 
• External Engagement, Local Awareness, and Workforce:​ Increase public awareness of geothermal energy as baseload source of energy; develop workforce initiatives to engage skilled workers.​

Last Updated: March 31, 2026