How Austin Energy's new geothermal project could revolutionize Texas' energy production

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Austin Energy, in partnership with Austin company Exceed Geo Energy, is installing a "first-of-its-kind" geothermal pilot project that will come online in 2025. If successful, it could be expanded to a much larger scale.

In an interview with KXAN, Exceed Geo Energy CEO Timothy Tarver said that the setup is an always-on, reliable and scalable energy solution.

"It generates power 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, regardless of the wind or weather conditions," Tarver said. "It works at like 97% to 98% utilization, where some other forms of renewable energy are only 30ish percent."

The geothermal well is drilled similarly to those used for oil and gas, but much deeper into Earth's crust. Previously designed wells heat large amounts of water to turn a turbine that generates electricity. Exceed Geo Energy's well uses a "minimal" amount of water, Tarver said, and that water stays in the generator's system.

"In the middle of some areas...that don't have a lot of water, we can use supercritical CO2," he said. "We can get that from pollution in the atmosphere, and we turn that into a working fluid. [It] is actually a better conduit for heat than water is."

Another innovation of Tarver's design is the "infinity loop," as he calls it -- a closed-loop geothermal system. Only a handful of companies have made prototype closed-well systems, and the only similar project is being developed by German company Eavor.

"The [supercritical CO2] stays within that loop. It just goes around and around and around, and it'll do that forever," Tarver said.

A key limit to the technology is finding suitable sites, according to Tarver. However, he's optimistic that the technology can be quickly brought to a larger scale.

"What it's really going to take is the oil and gas community coming together with the geothermal community, to push this further and to really scale it up," he said. "We can drill through the oil and gas zones, and we can mark where there's oil and gas. It takes all the same people."

Scale, Tarver said, is critical for the future of Texas' electric grid and for reducing consumer's energy bills.

"Big data centers are being put all over Texas. We have to do something to stabilize the grid," he said. "Geothermal is probably the best solution out there, it's like the Earth's battery."