Swiss geothermal company ZeroGeo Energy has partnered with US-based Eden GeoPower to work on geothermal heat and power and geologic hydrogen projects in Europe.
The two companies will deploy Eden’s rock permeability enhancement technology.
Eden has developed electrical reservoir stimulation technology, which increases natural resource recovery while improving the economics of resource recovery with the least environmental impact.
The technology uses electricity to enhance permeability for increased recovery across new and existing assets.
It also consumes less water, reducing carbon emissions and the seismic risks associated with traditional hydraulic fracturing.
Eden uses high-voltage electricity and reservoir monitoring techniques for increased rock permeability while controlling the direction of the generated fracture network, precisely targeting specific subsurface areas.
This is a fundamental change compared with traditional hydraulic-fracturing methods where water is used to create fractures that are uncontrollable, hindering fluid flow and obstructing re-stimulation.
European countries including France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain have banned traditional hydraulic fracturing, limiting their ability to extract geothermal heat, geologic hydrogen and other natural resources from the subsurface.
Eden’s technology can improve the productivity of existing assets or develop new projects without the need for traditional hydraulic fracturing.
The two companies aim to identify opportunities to deploy Eden’s technology in Europe to increase rock permeability in geothermal and geologic hydrogen reservoirs for maximum heat and natural hydrogen extraction.
ZeroGeo CEO John Ashbridge stated: “We are delighted to be working with Eden GeoPower to help bring their new technology to Europe. The next generation of natural resource recovery technologies is critical in the energy transition.
"Europe has a long history of geothermal heat and power generation, but facilities have often been unable to achieve required production rates due to restrictions on traditional hydraulic fracturing, so we expect that Eden’s technology will be of great interest to project owners and project developers.
“Recent geologic hydrogen discoveries in Europe and ongoing exploration open the exciting possibility of developing sovereign European natural hydrogen resources with Eden’s technology.”
Eden CEO Paris Smalls stated: “Our technology is ideally suited to the operating environment in Europe, which has essentially banned the use of traditional hydraulic rock stimulation techniques in many countries.
“With our alternative, water-minimal, electric-based rock stimulation technology, we can increase permeability and avoid the injection of large volumes of water into the reservoir.
“We believe that our technology can be a game changer for the European renewable energy market, particularly for deep geothermal and geologic hydrogen. Our new partnership with ZeroGeo highlights our goals to bring the value of our technology to the European market, and assist many countries in achieving their renewable energy goals.”
