Meeting Energy and Water Demands: Collocated Geothermal Solutions

This white paper focuses on strategies to optimize site- and project-scale geothermal operations, including Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), Advanced Geothermal Systems (AGS), and hydrothermal systems, to address growing energy demands and dual challenges of water conservation and collocation opportunities with data centers and large-load industrial manufacturing facilities. Challenges center on increasing infrastructure needs as data center energy consumption has risen sharply, forecasted to reach up to 12% of U.S. annual energy consumption by 2028, amplifying strains on both energy availability and water resources due to substantial cooling demands. Near-term opportunities focus on innovative water management practices, such as cascading reuse and closed-loop systems, alongside site-specific design strategies to improve fractured reservoir management and enable collocation benefits, including powering data centers and industrial facilities with geothermal baseload electricity and repurposing geothermal-produced water for cooling. Success measures include metrics to assess load flexibility potential, cooling energy variability, and load curtailment tolerance across geothermal operations, ensuring effective resource optimization while enhancing site-specific water and energy resiliency. By leveraging advanced modeling and design efforts, this white paper provides insights into enabling sustainable growth in industrial and digital economies while minimizing resource impacts.