Enhanced geothermal moves toward commercial scale in the US

Construction is underway on a Utah geothermal installation that aims to be the first major commercial project using enhanced geothermal systems technology to enter service at utility scale; the owner expects generation to begin in June 2026.

The developer, Fervo Energy, plans a facility with a rated output of 53 megawatts and a net summer capacity of 28 megawatts, with two additional units of the same size slated to start in early 2027.

Enhanced geothermal leverages advanced drilling and reservoir creation techniques borrowed from oil and gas to produce hot fluids where natural hydrothermal reservoirs are absent, potentially unlocking resources across wide swaths of the country beyond traditional hotspots.

Multiple studies and surveys cited in industry literature point to very large technical and economic upside: one government geological assessment highlights roughly 135 GW of potential in a single southwestern subregion, while other analyses place national cost-effective potential up to about 150 GW.

Smaller pilot installations have proven core techniques, but developers still face high upfront drilling costs and the need to manage induced seismicity and reservoir performance; research programs are actively refining operational controls and subsurface modeling to lower these barriers.

Public laboratories and agency-backed field testbeds are supporting progress through methods development, and commercial linkages — including technology buyers and utilities — are now emerging to underwrite larger builds.

• Corporate and utility demand: Fervo has signed power purchase agreements that, collectively with other deals, create a multi-hundred megawatt pipeline.
• Defense and data center interest: federal and commercial buyers are partnering to place EGS capacity near military bases and compute hubs.
• Technology variety: alternative closed-loop designs and refrigerant-based cycles are advancing alongside water-based EGS pilots.

Near-term commercial starts like the Utah site will serve as proving grounds for scale economics; developers expect follow-on expansions if initial units meet performance and permitting expectations.

If drilling costs fall and seismic risk controls hold, projections by national labs suggest hundreds of terawatt-hours of new, baseload-like clean power could be feasible decades out — altering long-term capacity mixes where geothermal becomes dispatchable firming complement to wind and solar.