Nevada State officials pledged $1 million this week to a years-long effort to land a national geothermal laboratory near Fallon. The Fallon site is one of two locations competing to serve as the main hub for the Department of Energy’s geothermal research. The other possible site is in Utah.
The federal agency is expected to pick a site next year. Researchers have been developing the Fallon project since November 2014, when a proposal was first submitted to the Department of Energy. In late 2016, it was selected as one of two possible sites for the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) lab. Since then, a team of researchers from organizations and national labs, has been conducting environmental reviews, drilling test holes and working on getting federal land permits.
For utilities that buy geothermal, this could change the economic equation.
“As you go to higher penetrations of renewable energy displacing thermal plants, geothermal has a significant value. And that is you can dispatch it,” NV Energy CEO Paul Caudill said in a recent interview with The Nevada Independent. “We can use geothermal plants at night when we can’t use a solar facility. I think there is a significant value there. And as you start pushing to increase [solar] penetration on the grid, geothermal is going to become more valued.”
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