Conference paper · 51st Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir… 2026
Arrays of Networked Standard Geothermal Wells
PROCEEDINGS, 51st Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir Engineering, Stanford University, 2026
Abstract
Time to scale the harvesting of geothermal heat for conversion to grid electricity. And not just because geothermal is clean. No, we choose geothermal because it is firm, inexhaustible, safe, and competitively harvestable almost anywhere (cheap). How best to scale geothermal? We urge the development of geothermal arrays. With our Internet mindsets in place, let’s not continue toward ever bigger geothermal mainframes.
Instead, let’s deploy geothermal arrays by networking smaller, standard, competitively-sourced wells. While accelerating progress continues at the well level, in this paper let’s move up to the “array” level. We engage in dialogue with a large language model (GPT) about how soon we can deliver energy with capacity factors (CFs) approaching 100% and with levelized costs of electricity (LCOE) at a new plateau, less than a cent per kilowatt-hour (<1¢/kWh).
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Cite this paper
Download .bib ↓Robert Metcalfe, Emmanuel Lujan, Collin Wittenstein, Andrew Inglis and Alan Edelman, “Arrays of Networked Standard Geothermal Wells,” PROCEEDINGS, 51st Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir Engineering, Stanford University, 2026.
@inproceedings{metcalfe2026arrays,
title={Arrays of Networked Standard Geothermal Wells},
author={Metcalfe, Robert and Lujan, Emmanuel and Wittenstein, Collin and Inglis, Andrew and Edelman, Alan},
booktitle={PROCEEDINGS, 51st Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir Engineering},
year={2026},
month={02},
organization={Stanford University},
address={Stanford, CA},
url={https://pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/db/GeoConf/papers/SGW/2026/Metcalfe.pdf}
}