March 29, 2024
Global Renewable News

GREENFIRE ENERGY INC.
GreenFire Energy Inc. Awarded Major Grant of $1.48 Million from the California Energy Commission
Grant Will Fund the World's First Demonstration of Closed-Loop Geothermal Power Generation Using Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Instead of Water

March 20, 2017

GreenFire Energy Inc. announced that it has been selected for a grant award from the California Energy Commission to build the world's first demonstration of closed-loop geothermal power generation using supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) instead of water. GreenFire Energy Inc.'s geothermal power generation process could enable thousands of megawatts of new carbon-free power plants in California and other markets. The proposed $1.48 million grant from the Energy Commission's Geothermal Grant and Loan Program will be considered for approval by the Energy Commission at the June 14, 2017, Business Meeting.

California has an aggressive goal of generating 50% of electricity retail sales with eligible renewable energy resources by 20301. Geothermal energy is an essential part of California's energy mix, as well as an important part of the state's clean energy efforts. The purpose of the Geothermal Grant and Loan Program is to promote development and maintenance of California's vast geothermal energy resources.

GreenFire Energy Inc.'s innovative ECO2G technology harnesses recent advances in deep and directional drilling technologies from the oil and gas industry to access high-temperature geothermal resources that cannot be exploited with existing geothermal technology. The demonstration project involves inserting a co-axial closed-loop tube into an existing geothermal well that lacks sufficient permeability to generate power. Supercritical carbon dioxide will then be circulated to transfer heat to the surface and generate power from a small turbo expander. 

 "GreenFire Energy's ECO2G technology is the culmination of years of research with the U.S. Department of Energy, national laboratories and universities. We are pleased that the California Energy Commission has recognized ECO2G's potential to increase California's clean energy supply, while providing flexible and baseload power. This demonstration will show that ECO2G projects can be co-located with existing geothermal projects to boost power output using the existing infrastructure," said Joseph Scherer, chief executive officer, GreenFire Energy Inc.

About GreenFire Energy Inc.

GreenFire Energy Inc. offers an elegantly simple and standardized solution to harvest the earth's "thermal battery," which is by far the largest source of continuous renewable energy. GreenFire Energy's proprietary technology, ECO2G , accesses the extremely large, hot and deep geothermal resources that have been previously unreachable. ECO2G's modular scalable architecture fully exploits deep geothermal resources to provide grid-scale power generation. Equally important, ECO2G provides continuous yet flexible power that quickly responds to the grid's dynamically changing power requirements. Adding to its advantages, ECO2G is also the most environmentally safe form of grid-scale power.
GreenFire Energy Inc. has been awarded two grants by the U.S. Department of Energy. GreenFire Energy Inc. is a privately held company based in Emeryville, CA. Visit us at www.greenfireenergy.com.

ECO2G is a registered trademark of GreenFire Energy Inc. All other brands, products or service names are or may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.

1 "Renewable Energy: Tracking Progress," California Energy Commission, December 2015, and California Senate Bill 350, 2015.

For more information

GreenFire Energy Inc.

www.greenfireenergy.com


Hollis Chin
PR Consultant
hollischin@gmail.com
510-410-5124


From the same organization :
28 Press releases