Legislation Moves Geothermal Adoption Forward

Geothermal energy continues to make strides toward wider deployment, as lawmakers in both Congress and the Pennsylvania legislature recently passed bills to streamline permitting and develop regulations.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Geothermal Energy Advancement Act with bipartisan support. The package of legislation includes several bills to streamline permitting and cut regulatory red tape on federal lands, offer geothermal developers the same streamlined permitting system as oil and gas companies, and authorize the Department of Interior to recoup application and inspection fees from developers to speed project reviews. It now goes to the Senate.

The majority of U.S. geothermal resources are on public lands in Western states, which have hot subsurface geology to provide heat. However, advancements in technology and drilling techniques are opening up geothermal development in states with cooler subsurface temperatures. Enhanced geothermal systems use drilling techniques developed for unconventional natural gas drilling to fracture rocks in areas identified to have the right geology to allow fluids to circulate through and use that heat to generate power.

Pennsylvania legislators have taken notice. A Joint State Government Commission report on geothermal development examined ways the state’s potential could be unlocked, and a 2024 Project Innerspace report on the state’s geothermal potential, to which the CEBE contributed, found that that if steps are taken now to fully access the geothermal heat that exists underground, the Commonwealth could generate enough energy to meet 100% of its electricity, heating and low- and medium-temperature industrial process needs in as few as 10 years.

The Pennsylvania House in May also passed H.B. 2076, bipartisan legislation to establish a comprehensive regulatory framework for deep geothermal energy production. It is now awaiting consideration in the state Senate alongside a companion bill, Senate Bill 1131.The legislation authorizes the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to create permitting processes and regulate geothermal injection wells, defines property rights, and sets rules to allow for legacy and abandoned oil and gas wells to be repurposed for geothermal energy generation, which will cut down on development costs.

The state also recently received a $14 million federal grant to develop an enhanced geothermal system (EGS) demonstration project that will repurpose an existing CNX unconventional gas well in the Utica shale of Indiana County into a geothermal well that will produce electrical power for the grid and heat for nearby homes and businesses.

Further policy measures are needed to scale geothermal development and bring down the cost, but legislation at the federal and state level is a first step toward wider deployment.