There is a power crush as a ramp up in the construction of AI and Cloud Provider Data Center. But a new report shows that there is a solution below their foundations.
According to one, advanced geothermal strength can provide about two -thirds of data center demand by 2030 Analysis Through the Rodium Group. This increase will increase the amount of geothermal electricity capacity in the United States by four times – from 4 GHwat to 16 GW – while the data center operators at the same or less than today’s payment.
In the West America, where geothermal resources are too high, this technology can demand 100 % of the new data center demand. Phoenix, for example, can add a 3.8 GHwat data center capacity without creating a new traditional power plant.
Geothermal resources have the potential to provide permanent power. Historically, geothermal power plants have been limited to places where the heat level is close to the surface. But modern geothermal techniques can only open 90 GW clean power in the United States, According to To the US Department of Energy.
Advanced or better geothermal widespread approaches, but usually they do deeper and wider drills than before. This allows them to access hot stones – which is translated into more power – and tie more geothermal wells to a single property. The sector has seen the increase in startups in recent years, which has been run by knowledge and technology taken from oil and gas companies.
For example, Fero Energy’s former oil and gas engineers have been laid to enhance the capacity of geothermal over the past few decades using perfectly horizontal drilling techniques. The company collected more than $ 200 million on the significance of a significant reduction in the cost of drilling in 2024.
Another startup, badric energy, is digging deeply to minimize the geothermal image, allowing space compulsive office buildings and data centers to extract more power than their limited footprints. The company’s special drilling veins are less than 1,200 feet to tap the heat throughout the year.
The quiz energy technology looks like something beyond the science fiction. Startups make the rock vapors using microwaves manufactured by girlfriends. Except for the traditional drill bits, quiz hopes they will drill 12.4 miles (20 km). In this depth, the stones are about 1,000 1,000 ° F throughout the year, which offers almost LAME unlimited amounts of heat to operate generators or hot buildings.
Although most companies are using heat supply and storage land capabilities, another startup is using it to store energy in another way. The Sage Geo system is injuring water in wells under pressure. When electricity is needed, it can open the taps and run the water through turbine, such as the upside down hydroelectric dam.
The Rodium report states that since geothermal power has very low costs, it is competitive today with the energy costs of data centers today. When data centers are targeted as today, a process that is usually in close proximity to fiber optics and large metro areas, the cost of geothermal electricity is more than $ 75 per megawatts.
But when the developers calculate the geothermal capacity in their setting, the costs are significantly reduced, which is about $ 50 per megawatt hour.
The report assumes that the ability to produce a new will be “behind the meter”, which is what experts are called power plants, which neglect the grid directly to a user. Wait the time to connect the cans of the grid of the new power plants Spread for years. As a result, there is more appeal for data center operators behind the meter arrangements that are roaming around to develop new capacity.