An injection well at the Blue Mountain geothermal plant. Credit: Dennis Schroeder/NREL
For parts of the U.S., the best place to store massive amounts energy for the electric grid could be right beneath our feet.
Geothermal energy, which relies on hot rock far below the earth’s surface, has long been used as a source of heating and electricity generation. But recent advances in drilling technology have opened up new opportunities to widely deploy geothermal power. It spurred researchers at Princeton University to demonstrate in an article in the journal Applied Energy that geothermal also can serve as an ideal technology for energy storage. What’s more, geothermal…