I recently made a trip to the central and southwestern parts of Utah—a region that could easily be called Utah’s New Energy Corridor—to visit some of the energy transition initiatives currently made in the state. These developments add new layers of energy resources to Utah’s legacy in oil, gas, and mineral production. Let’s take a look.
Rasoul Sorkhabi
Editor, Core Elements
Hydrogen Storage in the Salt Dome
Photo courtesy of Rasoul Sorkhabi
The Advanced Clean Energy Storage (ACES) in Delta, Utah is a pioneer project for hydrogen storage in salt caverns.
How did it start?
In June 2022, the DOE granted a $504.4 million loan to finance the ACES to build the hydrogen storage facility in Utah.
In September 2023, Chevron become a majority shareholder in ACES. The other partner is Mitsubishi Power Americas.
Utilizing salt caverns:
Delta, Utah sits atop a Jurassic-age salt dome.
Two underground salt caverns have been constructed, each capable of storing 5,500 metric tonnes of compressed hydrogen.
The salt caverns were made by solution mining the underground salt. Excavated salt brine was then poured into huge evaporation ponds at the site.
Each salt cavern measures 220 feet wide and 1,200 feet tall (taller than the Empire State Building) and is buried 4,000 feet below the surface.
Hydrogen storage: Hydrogen will be stored alongside a cushion or base gas (for example, methane), and the cavern will be maintained at a pressure of about 1,000 pounds per inch to prevent salt shrinkage.
Industrial collaboration: ACES will work closely with the Intermountain Power Agency (IPA), a utility company operating in Delta.
Hydrogen production:
Hydrogen will be produced by water electrolysis.
IPA will provide the high-voltage electricity required for this process.
The electricity will eventually come from excess renewable energy, such as wind and solar, during off-peak hours.
Electricity generation:
The stored hydrogen will be used for an 840 MW hydrogen-capable gas turbine, combined-cycle power plant.
Starting in 2025, the fuel will be a blend of 30 percent hydrogen and 70 percent natural gas. This ratio will increase to 100 percent hydrogen by 2045.
Why it matters:
Underground hydrogen storage is a challenging technology that requires plenty of research, development, and pilot testing.
ACES is the largest project of its kind and will provide a field-scale analog to similar ventures elsewhere.
Sponsored
The industry’s most complete and accurate well database
With over 6 million US oil and gas well records, plus production and injection data.
Utah is the third-largest producer of conventional geothermal power in the U.S. (after California and Nevada). It is also a test ground for unconventional or enhanced geothermal system (EGS).
Why southwest Utah? This part of Utah is within the Basin-and-Range province with higher crustal heat flow due to stretched and thinned continental crust sitting atop a hot magma chamber. FORGE is also near three other conventional geothermal plants.
How FORGE is different:
FORGE aims to tap heat resources in basement granite (“hot dry rock”) via drilling deviated wells and hydraulic fracturing.
FORGE drilled an injection well in 2020 and a production well in 2023. Both were fractured.
During hydraulic fracturing, induced seismicity did not exceed magnitude 1.9.
The injection well has a vertical depth of 8,559 feet and a total depth of 10,897 feet, including its deviated lateral section. The two wells are parallel with lateral sections at 65 degrees to the vertical section. The production well is spaced 300 feet apart vertically.
What’s new: Recently, FORGE ran a circulation test that validated water communication between the wells. Water was injected at a rate of 15 barrels per minute for nine hours, and the outflow from the production well was up to 8 barrels per minute at temperatures of 139 ˚C. The water communication between the two wells had a recovery efficiency of 70 percent.
Why it matters:
EGS power plants are carbon free and can provide plenty of steam for turbines to generate electricity.
FORGE is a pilot EGS plant, and the knowledge base gained from it will be useful for other EGS projects with similar conditions.
Wind and Solar Farms
Photo and diagram courtesy of Rasoul Sorkhabi
Solar and wind now account for 18 percent of Utah’s electricity generation, with most of these plants located in southwest Utah.
Milford Wind Farm: The Milford Wind Corridor Project was constructed and financed by First Wind in two phases:
Phase 1 from 2008–2009 had a posted capacity of 204 megawatts with 97 wind turbines.
Phase 2 from 2010–2011 included an additional 68 turbines with a total capacity of 102 megawatts.
Escalante solar farm is adjacent to Milford Wind farm. It consists of three 80-megawatt photovoltaic units.
Enterprise solar farm with 80-megawatt capacity is located near Cedar City, some 60 miles to the south of Escalante solar farm.
Three Cedars Project consists of three units to the west of Cedar City, with a combined power capacity of 190 megawatts.
Today, Clearway Energy owns 100 percent of Escalante, Enterprise, and Three Cedars solar stations.
The bottom line:
Co-production: A small area in the Great Basin of southwest Utah is one of very few places in the world where various forms of renewables energies—hydrogen, geothermal, wind, and solar – are all concentrated.
Power for California: Most of the electricity generated by solar and wind in Utah’s New Energy Corridor is sold to Pacific Corp. Utah will increasingly become a source of electricity to California, where there is more demand for electricity, especially from IT companies.
👍 If you enjoyed this edition of Core Elements, consider supporting AAPG's brand of newsletters by forwarding to a friend or colleague and signing up for our other newsletters here.
➡️ Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Subscribe to Core Elements here.
AAPG thanks our advertisers for their support. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. If you're interested in supporting AAPG digital products, reach out to Melissa Roberts.
.png?upscale=true&width=220&upscale=true&name=Rasoul-Sorkhabi-Headshot-Signature%20(1).png)
