GEOTHERMAL TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE
GTO's Flagship EGS Site Hosts GTO, EERE to Witness Drilling Operations

In late May, GTO's Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) site in Utah hosted GTO's Acting Director Lauren Boyd, Enhanced Geothermal Systems Program Manager Kevin Jones, the Acting Assistant Secretary for DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable energy (EERE) and other EERE guests to tour FORGE and view drilling for its producer well, called 16B (pictured below).

The nearly completed 16B well will intersect the fractures from the previous stimulation of the site's 16A well. The completion of the 16B well will create an EGS injector-producer well pair at FORGE and allow the team to evaluate the subsurface connections between these two wells.

Researchers will also conduct additional stimulations of both wells, which allow the team to improve subsurface flow pathways and do flow testing between the two wells to measure heat extraction and power production potentials.