DOE launches Geothermal Center of Excellence to accelerate gigawatt-scale energy development through national lab and industry partnerships

On September 3, 2026, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office officially stood up a Geothermal Center of Excellence at the National Laboratory of the Rockies campus in Golden, Colorado. DOE leadership, elected officials, and industry reps all showed up for the launch. The National Laboratory of the Rockies will lead the consortium, with the National Energy Technology Laboratory backing them up.

DOE formally establishes Geothermal Center of Excellence in Golden, Colorado

The September 3 event wasn’t just a ribbon-cutting. DOE leadership, elected officials, NLR and NETL staff, and industry representatives gathered to align on the Center’s vision and priorities — a deliberate signal that this isn’t simply a research announcement. It’s a structured commitment to moving geothermal energy from niche to mainstream.

NLR leads the consortium; NETL provides support. Both labs already carry serious capabilities in subsurface energy research, which makes them natural anchors for a program designed to bridge scientific discovery and commercial deployment.

Geologically active regions in the West offer serious potential, yet the technology and investment needed to fully tap those resources haven’t kept pace.

DOE Under Secretary for Energy Kyle Haustveit kept it simple: “America has vast geothermal resources beneath our feet that can provide reliable, around-the-clock energy while strengthening our energy dominance.”

Why the Center was created: Unlocking untapped geothermal resources

The U.S. sits on enormous geothermal reserves, yet geothermal has historically represented a small fraction of domestic electricity generation. The gap between what’s underground and what’s on the grid — that’s the problem the Center is built to solve.

Unlike solar or wind, geothermal doesn’t quit when the sun goes down or the wind stops blowing. It produces continuous baseload power — the steady, dispatchable electricity grid operators depend on to keep supply and demand in balance. That reliability is a genuine advantage, and it’s a core reason DOE is pushing this resource now.

The initiative also fits the Trump administration’s stated goal of energy dominance and energy security. The DOE’s Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office — which oversees both fossil fuel and geothermal programs — framed the Center as an extension of that broader policy direction. Affordable, reliable, and secure energy is the stated objective, and geothermal checks all those boxes in ways that have historically been underexploited. Bridging lab research and commercial-scale deployment is the structural challenge the Center is explicitly designed to close.

Expected outcomes: Grid reliability, gigawatt-scale power, and expanded production

The ambitions are large. The Center aims to accelerate discovery and development of geothermal energy at gigawatt scale — a level of output that could meaningfully shift geothermal’s share of the U.S. electricity mix.

DOE Acting Assistant Secretary Curt Coccodrilli was direct: “The Geothermal Center of Excellence marks an important step in our work to accelerate gigawatt-scale geothermal energy on the U.S. grid. By driving innovation and enhancing lab-industry collaboration, the Center will help us achieve our goals to enhance reliable baseload power, strengthen grid reliability, and improve long-term energy security.”

One key structural piece is the Industry Advisory Board. It’ll provide objective insight into industry-relevant research needs, help accelerate lab-industry partnerships, and advise on Center priorities. When industry shapes research direction, lab outputs are far more likely to become deployable technology rather than just published findings. The Center will also serve as industry’s primary entry point to DOE’s national laboratory network — a practical move that cuts friction for private companies trying to navigate federal lab partnerships.

Background: geothermal energy’s role in U.S. energy policy

Geothermal has a long history in the U.S., but it’s never quite broken through to scale. Geologically active regions in the West offer serious potential, yet the technology and investment needed to fully tap those resources haven’t kept pace.

The DOE’s Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office sits at an interesting intersection, managing both fossil fuel programs and geothermal development — a pragmatic view of the energy portfolio rather than a strictly ideological one. National labs like NLR and NETL have built real subsurface energy expertise over decades, which is precisely why they’re the right institutions to anchor this effort.

Policy attention on geothermal has grown as grid planners wrestle with a genuine tension: the push to add more renewables is real, but so is the need for firm, dispatchable power that doesn’t depend on weather. Geothermal fits that need in a way solar and wind simply can’t, driving renewed interest from policymakers across different administrations and different energy philosophies.

Pulling together national lab expertise and industry input

The Geothermal Center of Excellence is a concrete federal commitment to scaling up a resource that’s long been underutilized relative to its potential. Established September 3, 2026, and anchored at the National Laboratory of the Rockies in Golden, Colorado, it pulls together national lab expertise and industry input under one coordinated structure.

Its goals are specific: gigawatt-scale geothermal development, enhanced baseload power, stronger grid reliability, and improved energy security. The Industry Advisory Board and the Center’s role as a dedicated lab-industry access point are the mechanisms meant to turn those goals into deployable outcomes.

Whether it delivers at the scale Department of Energy envisions remains an open question. But the institutional structure is in place, and the direction is clear.

Kelly Lippke

Kelly is an experienced writer with 15 years of experience exploring the big stories that shape our world, from tech breakthroughs and space exploration to climate, energy, and the fascinating quirks of science. She has a talent for turning complex ideas into sharp, memorable insights that stay with readers long after they’ve finished reading.