University of Nevada, Reno and Ormat receive $15m DOE geothermal research funding

View over Reno, Nevada (source: flickr/ RobertCiavarro, creative commons)

As part of overall funding of around $28 million for geothermal research by the U.S. Department of Energy, the University of Nevada in Reno (UNR) and Ormat Technologies received more than $15 million in grant funding in support of geothermal energy efforts.

According to a July 29 press release by UNR, the university received $10 million for work “to accelerate discoveries of new, commercially-viable hidden geothermal systems in the Great Basin region by combining play fairway analysis, machine learning, advanced geostatistics, and other analytical techniques into a comprehensive exploration toolkit.”

Ormat was awarded $5,361,423 “to conduct a comparative analysis of similar stimulations in different geologic environments and increase production.”

Earlier this year, Rosen helped introduce the Solar and Geothermal Tax Credit Expansion Act (S. 3229) with U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) that would extend clean energy tax incentives and create tax parity for geothermal energy technologies.

“Ormat is thrilled to receive $5.3 million of grant funding from the DOE for research and development projects in Nevada,” Paul Thomsen, Vice President of Business Development at Ormat, said in a statement. “These research projects will address barriers to widespread geothermal development and advance geothermal technology in our region, ultimately putting more Nevadans to work in clean energy jobs.”

Source: Northern Nevada Business Weekly