Intellectual property developer UC Won LLC has filed a petition with the Public Utility Commission of Nevada asking for a determination that solar augmented geothermal energy technology could be used to serve a single large customer in Nevada without state regulation.
While Nevada is home to a number of geothermal projects, including some owned and operated by geothermal industry leader Ormat Technologies Inc., the concept of pairing solar with abandoned geothermal wells is relatively new and untested.
UC Won described itself in a news release as a Nevada limited liability company founded in 2012 to create and manage a portfolio of intellectual properties focused on energy-related technologies that are aligned with long term sustainable environmental goals. The company said it has developed a proprietary process called Solar Augmented Geothermal Energy, which involves solar-generated energy being stored in the ground to provide electric power at all hours.
The idea would be to use existing geothermal wells that no longer produce energy or to use geothermal exploration wells that were abandoned because they failed to produce enough heat for a commercially viable electric generating facility, according to a white paper on the subject authored by UC Won Managing Director Mark Hauenstein. He also is the project lead of a development team for RenewGeo, the branding organization behind the concept of collecting solar energy in the form of heat and injecting it into the ground to create a synthetic geothermal resource.
UC Won's solar augmented geothermal energy technology |
Fluid heated by solar thermal collectors would be injected into a geothermal well and used as needed to power an electric generating plant. The idea is similar to a concept described in a 2006 patent application for solar augmented geothermal energy by inventors Sovani Meksvanh of Silver Spring, Md., and Ronald Whelan of Potomac, Md. They proposed to transfer concentrated solar energy to a supercritical fluid to be piped into injection wells in depleted oil and gas fields for storage so it could be extracted later to create steam for power generators.
In his white paper, Hauenstein said creating usable thermal storage in geothermal wells could be made possible by using that and similar injection/production techniques developed by the oil industry.
Hauenstein said UC Won has created a way of making 100% renewable energy available 24 hours a day and wants to provide that power to one customer with no outside connections to the existing electrical grid. He did not name a specific customer but said data centers and "cryptominers" have shown great interest in the innovation because it would allow them to grow while limiting their impact on the environment, the grid and Nevada's utility ratepayers.
"With all of the changes lately to Nevada's energy policy, we felt it was important to ask the commission for permission to develop this technology," Hauenstein said. He may have been referring, at least in part, to a law the state passed this year that strengthens requirements eligible customers must meet before they can buy energy from nonutility power suppliers.

