HOUSTON — Quaise Energy, a leading developer of utility-scale superhot geothermal energy, announced Tuesday that it has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy for up to $25 million in funding under the Next-Generation Geothermal Field Tests and Geothermal Resource Characterization and Confirmation funding opportunity.

"The support brings the U.S. closer to commercializing superhot Enhanced Geothermal Systems — technology that could unlock firm, clean power from hot rock beneath virtually any geography in the country," the company said in a news release that continues below, along with a list of potential funding recipients from DOE:

The funding will advance Project Obsidian, the world's first commercial superhot geothermal power plant, at Newberry Volcano in Central Oregon.

It will support analysis of the drilling, stimulation, and flow results of the first two wells to optimize a third well at the Obsidian site. The three-well configuration is targeting average reservoir temperatures of over 300°C  (572°F) and is designed to demonstrate more than 25 megawatts of gross electric power capacity.

The DOE funding will also enable Quaise and its research partners to collect, analyze and share field data from drilling, stimulation and flow testing — establishing a replicable template to help unlock further EGS development.

“This DOE support is a recognition of what we are building at Quaise and the progress we are making in the field, including the confirmation well currently being drilled at Project Obsidian,” said Carlos Araque, CEO and President of Quaise Energy. “Our ambition has always been to make superhot geothermal a commercial reality, and Project Obsidian is where we first deliver on that promise.”

Project Obsidian, currently under construction south of Bend, sits on one of the most extensively studied geothermal resources in the United States. The project is expected to deliver first power to the Pacific Northwest grid in 2030, with potential for expansion up to one gigawatt of electricity.

Learnings from these three wells will directly inform subsequent drilling at the site. Using EGS and advanced drilling techniques, Quaise expects to drill the hottest well in the Western Hemisphere at Project Obsidian, reaching temperatures over 400°C (752°F)  — above the range of current commercial geothermal projects. Phase one of the project is expected to produce more than 50 megawatts of electric power by 2030.

The full value of the proposed DOE funding is subject to completion of award negotiations. The project team includes experts from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Oregon State University.

The selection follows Quaise's close of $180 million in Series B financing in August, led by Nabors Industries and Prelude Ventures, with participation from JERA Co., Inc. and Idemitsu Kosan, to fund Project Obsidian.

About Quaise Energy

Quaise Energy is unlocking the Earth’s deep heat to deliver clean, reliable, baseload energy at scale—almost anywhere in the world. As both a technology innovator and project developer, Quaise builds and operates solutions that harness superhot geothermal energy far below the surface, enabling power generation that can rival the output of today’s most efficient fossil fuel and nuclear plants. With its millimeter wave drilling technology, developed after more than a decade of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Quaise’s mission is to make superhot geothermal a backbone of the modern energy system, offering affordable, zero-carbon power and true energy independence for communities and nations everywhere.

U.S. Department of Energy news release:

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Geothermal has selected 21 projects to help expand affordable and reliable geothermal energy across the United States by validating technical approaches, addressing key barriers, and generating new subsurface data.

The selections include five projects for enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) field tests that will evaluate and validate EGS reservoir development technologies and methods, and 16 projects for exploration drilling to characterize and confirm promising next-generation and hydrothermal resources. The projects will receive a total of up to $99 million for the first budget period of work, with additional funding subject to Congressional appropriations and successful completion of agreed-upon milestones and performance criteria.

Data generated by these projects will be publicly available through DOE’s Geothermal Data Repository (GDR), providing industry and researchers access to significant data about field tests and geothermal exploration.

The Office of Geothermal is supporting 21 projects to conduct field-scale tests of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) technologies and exploration drilling to characterize and potentially confirm promising EGS and hydrothermal resources. Together, these efforts will help reduce technical and development risk and provide data to help support future commercial projects and investment.

Five projects are conducting field-scale EGS tests at depths and temperatures appropriate for full-scale geothermal development:

• Fervo Energy Company (Houston, Texas) — Drill, complete, and stimulate EGS wells in Elmore County, Idaho, deploy the first-ever high-temperature three-component geophone array at or above 200°C, and conduct advanced seismic and geochemical analysis in partnership with national labs.

• Zanskar Geothermal and Minerals (Salt Lake City, Utah) — Design, drill, and hydraulically stimulate a short-lateral horizontal injection well at Lightning Dock Geothermal field in Hidalgo County, New Mexico, to deliver engineered pressure support to an actively producing hydrothermal reservoir and capture heat from impermeable, hot rock in the vicinity of the hydrothermal system

• AlterG Resources (Salt Lake City, Utah) — Field validate technical performance of EGS at commercially relevant depths in Pershing and Churchill Counties, Nevada, using a deep horizontal EGS well pair and a comparative hydraulic stimulation program testing plug-and-perf and sliding sleeve completions

• University of Utah (Salt Lake City, Utah) — Design, drill, stimulate, operate, and validate a high‑performance EGS doublet at the Dixie Valley West geothermal field in Nevada, with the aim to demonstrate that engineered reservoirs developed adjacent to existing hydrothermal systems can deliver sustained circulation, enhanced permeability, and commercially relevant thermal output

• Quaise Energy (Houston, Texas) — Conduct field-scale EGS demonstration on southern flank of Newberry Volcano in Central Oregon, with bottomhole temperatures of 265°–365°C—above the range where most conventional EGS tools and materials have been validated

Sixteen projects are working on exploration drilling to gather the subsurface data needed to characterize and potentially confirm promising next-generation and conventional hydrothermal geothermal resources:

• DAVINCI EP LLC (Denver, Colorado) — Drill and test two paired horizontal geothermal confirmation wells in the Brawley (California) Known Geothermal Resource Area to characterize a naturally enhanced hydrothermal reservoir without stimulation, identify parameters to support commercial-scale development of the resource, and provide a replicable framework for other naturally fractured geothermal basins

• University of Utah (Salt Lake City, Utah) — Conduct targeted drilling and subsurface characterization of a large thermal anomaly in Utah’s Cove Fort geothermal field and use modern drilling, logging, and data integration techniques to better understand how heat and fluids are distributed in carbonate rock formations

• Zanskar Geothermal and Minerals (Salt Lake City, Utah) — Test and document a confirmation methodology of directionally-drilled, deep wells from a single pad, using near-real-time stochastic model updates and logging-while-drilling to reduce anomaly-to-discovery timeline, and confirm a commercially viable hydrothermal resource at a Basin and Range site that has never been drilled to reservoir depth

• Fervo Energy Company (Houston, Texas) — Execute a targeted appraisal campaign at a high-priority EGS prospect in Humboldt County, Nevada, drilling to confirm reservoir temperatures of 200–220°C

• San Ildefonso Services LLC (Santa Fe, New Mexico) — Drill a pre-feasibility geothermal exploratory well in the San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico, on the eastern border of the Jemez Mountains volcanic field in the Rio Grande Rift, and collect basement core and data from injection tests and logging

• GeoAlaska LLC (Anchorage, Alaska) — Drill, core, log, and test a geothermal confirmation well on the southern flank of Mt. Augustine, a volcanic island in lower Cook Inlet, Alaska, and characterize the subsurface reservoir using a shallower well targeting >150°C and a deeper well targeting >350°C

• Hexagon Energy LLC (Charlottesville, Virginia) — Drill an exploration well in Washington’s Wind River Valley, targeting temperatures >150°C, and collect, test, and publish downhole data sufficient to design a commercial-scale geothermal drilling and power generation program

• GreenFire Energy Inc. (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) — Confirm and characterize deep geothermal resource potential in Sierra Army Depot (California) by siting and drilling a vertical well targeting 204°C and integrating legacy data, geophysical surveys, drilling, reservoir testing, and modeling

• TLS Geothermics Corp (Reno, Nevada) — Drill a confirmation well in Nevada targeting >204°C, using polycrystalline diamond compact drill bit technology in faulted crystalline rock, and develop and calibrate a 3D model linking magnetotelluric resistivity to temperature and permeability

• LiPower Geothermal, LLC (Gloucester, Massachusetts) — Construct two wells, a production well and a reinjection well, to complete a Definitive Feasibility Study on an under-explored geothermal resource in the South Brawley New River area (California)

• INTEK Inc (Arlington, Virginia) — Site and drill two reservoir-depth wells into the geothermal resource at Pisgah Crater (California) and collect data to characterize and confirm the resource, determine power production feasibility, and accelerate opportunities for commercial-scale geothermal power at the site

• Oriah Geothermal, LLC (Fort Worth, Texas) — Evaluate a next-generation geothermal resource in eastern Oregon through staged drilling of thermal-gradient wells to constrain the thermal regime and refine subsurface targets, followed by a reservoir-depth exploration well, advanced diagnostics, and integrated reservoir modeling

• XGS Energy Inc. (Palo Alto, California) — Drill deep vertical appraisal well in Socorro County, New Mexico, acquiring downhole temperature, logging, core, and continuous electronic drilling record data to validate subsurface datasets, update thermal and geologic models, and assess resource suitability

• Raser Power Systems, LLC (Reno, Nevada) — Assess opportunity for increased power generation from Thermo No. 1 geothermal power plant in Utah’s Escalante Desert by drilling an exploratory well in the southern fault intersection zone and conducting wellfield interaction monitoring between the exploration well and an existing well

• 400C Energy Inc. (Denver, Colorado) — Re-enter and deepen an existing geothermal well in Beaver County, Utah, to determine whether the Salt Cove area contains an extension of the nearby Roosevelt Hot Springs hydrothermal system, a high-temperature next-generation geothermal resource in hot crystalline rock

• Invenergy Geothermal Development LLC (Chicago, Illinois) — Validate hybrid hydrothermal–EGS potential near Grand View, Idaho, by drilling a deep temperature confirmation well to confirm subsurface temperature profiles, evaluating permeability indicators, and collecting high-resolution geologic and geophysical data

Data generated by these projects will be publicly available through DOE’s Geothermal Data Repository (GDR), giving industry, researchers, and other stakeholders access to information from the field tests and geothermal exploration activities. Making these data available can extend the value of the projects beyond individual sites by helping inform future technology development and geothermal exploration across the industry.