SLB and geothermal and renewable energy company Ormat Technologies announced an agreement to accelerate the development and commercialization of integrated geothermal assets, including enhanced geothermal systems (EGS). EGS is considered a next-generation geothermal technology that uses hydraulic fracturing to access geothermal energy in regions beyond where conventional geothermal resources exist.
The partnership aims to combine Ormat’s expertise in power plant design, development, and operations, and SLB’s experience in subsurface, reservoir engineering, and well construction. Together, they plan to codevelop and deploy integrated geothermal assets and EGS projects to enable wide-scale adoption.
The collaboration will include the design and construction of an EGS pilot at an Ormat site. Following the pilot, SLB and Ormat said that they will pursue large-scale EGS commercialization for independent power producers, utilities, and other customers including artificial intelligence (AI) data center operators.
“There is an urgent need to meet the growing demand for energy driven by AI and other factors. This requires accelerating the path to clean and reliable energy,” Gavin Rennick, president of SLB’s new energy business, said in a statement on 27 October. “By partnering with Ormat, we will work to make both traditional hydrothermal and EGS technologies truly competitive and commercially viable systems that can scale quickly to meet global energy demand through the coming decades.”
With decades of experience in geothermal and recovered energy generation, vertically integrated Ormat is advancing plans to expand its long-term presence in the US energy storage market.
“As the global leader in geothermal project development, Ormat expects to expand its development pipeline following a successful pilot and is committed to delivering reliable, sustainable, and efficient energy solutions to meet the demands of AI, data centers, and the broader energy transition,” Doron Blachar, CEO of Ormat, said in the announcement.
The companies highlighted that the US Department of Energy estimates that next-generation geothermal such as EGS could provide 90 GW by 2050 and potentially up to 300 GW in the US alone.