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New Energy World
New Energy World embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low carbon technologies.
Google has announced that its geothermal project in Nevada, US, has begun providing power to the local grid in an effort to fuel its data centres with clean energy.
The news comes two years after the company announced it would be partnering with clean energy startup Fervo to develop geothermal power at the site near Winnemucca, Nevada. Now operating commercially, its three wells are sending 3.5 MW to the grid, which powers two of Google’s data centres outside Las Vegas and Reno.
Google claims this is a first-of-a-kind project. Unlike traditional geothermal power, Fervo uses drilling techniques pioneered by the oil and gas industry to harness heat that would have previously been difficult to access. To tap into the subsurface heat, Fervo dug two horizontal wells and installed fibre-optic cables to capture data that shows the flow, temperature and performance of the geothermal system in real-time.
Google announced back in 2020 that it would use carbon-free energy every hour of every day, wherever it operates, by 2030.
Fervo is currently completing initial drilling in south-west Utah for a 400 MW geothermal project.
The US is a world leader in geothermal energy, but it still only accounts for less than 0.5% of the nation’s total utility-scale electricity generation, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
