The Lone Star State has become the global epicenter of geothermal development and innovation. Geothermal energy has been explored here since the 1960s, but the cost of drilling and the relatively lower subsurface temperatures compared to other parts of the country kept it from breaking through as a major source of energy for the state.
Over the last decade the situation has changed significantly: engineering breakthroughs and a rapid increase in demand driven by data centers, electrification, and population growth are making this “old” technology new again. Paired with a skilled workforce and a thriving innovation ecosystem, Texas is primed to lead the way in this clean, cost-effective and reliable base-load power source. Emerging technologies in drilling, well stimulation, and subsurface characterization are projected to reduce costs by 6-25% in the near term with potential for 20-43% in cost reductions as they mature. Today, Texas is home to the most geothermal companies in the world
thanks to an unprecedented combination of technical capacity & expertise, native geothermal resources, and supportive infrastructure and policies. Oil & gas industry expertise has directly transferred to geothermal drilling and operations, taking advantage of subsurface development capabilities accumulated over more than a century of hydrocarbon extraction (over half of the Texas geothermal founders have backgrounds in oil & gas).
The scalability potential in Texas is extraordinary: just 60,000 geothermal wells could supply the equivalent of all electricity and industrial heat currently served by oil & gas. Texas currently drills that many wells every four years for legacy sources; that development experience can be translated into a global deployment of Texas-grown geothermal solutions.
