Deep in Texas coal country, Sage Geosystems and San Miguel Electric Cooperative just delivered ERCOT’s first pressure-geothermal storage well. (POWER Mag)
The system uses a sealed subsurface “lung” to store pressure and push water through a Pelton turbine on release, landing 4–6 hours of duration and 70–75% round-trip efficiency without the land, water, or geography constraints that limit pumped hydro or long-duration batteries.
SMECI—a rural co-op in a town of just 365 people—is pairing the project with 400 MW of solar and 200 MW of batteries funded through USDA’s New ERA program.
With digital automation and Texas’s rapid geothermal permitting, Sage is now scaling the design for a second storage facility and a 150-MW geothermal baseload project serving Meta by 2027.
