Goals and Mission
Federal funding of geothermal research and development is authorized by statute to support the U.S. geothermal industry in providing diversity and therefore security in domestic energy supply options. This support also helps the industry maintain its technical edge in world energy markets, thereby enhancing exports of U.S. goods and services and U.S. job growth.
Program Goal:
The Department of Energy's goal is to develop enhanced geothermal systems technologies that produce electricity from artificially created geothermal systems. The Geothermal Technologies Program is balanced between short-term goals of greater interest to industry, and long-term goals of importance to national energy interests.
Program Mission:
To work in partnership with U.S. industry to establish geothermal energy as an economically competitive contributor to the U.S. energy supply.
The Program's research and development activities are expected to increase the number of new domestic geothermal fields, increase the success rate of geothermal well drilling, and reduce the costs of constructing and operating geothermal power plants. These improvements will increase the quantity of economically viable geothermal resources, leading in turn to an increased number of geothermal power facilities serving more energy demand. These new geothermal projects will take advantage of geothermal resources in locations where development is not currently possible or economical.
As part of its mission, DOE sponsors workshops that bring together members of the geothermal industry to explore various aspects of enhanced geothermal systems technologies. The activities and results of these workshops are made available as DOE's Workshop Documents. The Geothermal Technologies Program also provides several publications that are relevant to geothermal energy and enhanced geothermal systems.