Two Denver-based firms get geothermal grants

But no projects in Colorado awarded federal funding by the Department of Energy’s $99 million disbursement

by Allen Best

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced $99 million in grants for 21 projects, with the intent of advancing enhanced geothermal technology and development.

Not surprisingly, nearly all of the funded projects lie in Western states, where the subterranean heat is closer to the surface.

None of the projects are in Colorado, although two of the companies receiving grants call Denver home.

In 2024, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis predicted that 4% to 8% of Colorado’s electricity would come from enhanced geothermal by 2040. Several Colorado utility managers have indicated they believe geothermal will be part of their energy mix in the future. Currently, though, Colorado has no electrical generation created by mining the heat deep underground.

Of the 21 projects getting DOE funding, 5 are conducting field-scale enhanced geothermal system tests at depths and temperatures appropriate for full-scale geothermal development.

The remaining 16 projects involve exploration drilling to gather the subsurface data needed to characterize and potentially confirm promising next-generation and conventional hydrothermal geothermal resources.

The Denver-based companies have projects getting funded in this second category.

Davinci is getting money to drill and test two paired horizonal geothermal confirmation wells in California in what is called the East Brawley Geothermal Area. This is in the Imperial Valley, west of the Colorado River and north of the Mexican border but south of the Salton Sea.

The purpose of the work, according to the DOE announcement, is to characterize a naturally enhanced hydrothermal reservoir without stimulation, identify parameters to support commercial-scale development of the resource, and provide a replicable framework for other naturally fractured geothermal basins.

William McConathy, the CEO, founded the company in 2021. He comes from the oil and gas sector, both in the United States and South Asia.

400C Energy, the second Denver-based company to get money in this disbursement, is to re-enter and deepen an existing 2,500-meter (8,200 feet) geothermal well in Utah. The well is in the state’s southwest quadrant, in Beaver County.

This company was created in February 2025 and has four projects in Utah and one in Wyoming, near Cheyenne, as well as four in other states and two in Canada.

Blake Wood, one of the founders of 400C Energy, is scheduled to speak at a Geothermal Rising event at the New Terrain Brewery in Golden on Wednesday, Oct. 7, starting at 6 pm.

Other projects getting grants include one proximate to Colorado. A Santa Fe-based company, San Ildefonso Services, plans to drill a pre-feasibility geothermal exploratory well in the San Ildefonso Pueblo, which is located on the eastern border of the Jemez Mountains. This in the Rio Grande Rift, which extends along the river of the same name into Colorado. Some thinking has the Rio Grande Rift continuing northward into the upper Arkansas River Valley.

The Department of Energy says data generated by these projects will be publicly available through DOE’s Geothermal Data Repository (GDR), giving industry, researchers, and other stakeholders access to information from the field tests and geothermal exploration activities.