The Trump administration is no friend of wind and solar. Axed subsidies and project suspensions have been the attitude towards those alternative forms of energy. Geothermal, however, is something else. The current Department of Energy is very much for it. In fact, it is so much for it that it funded an experiment that would show whether fracking technology could be used to generate geothermal anywhere in the world.

Geothermal energy is, simply put, heat. It is heat that is generated from the decay of radioactive elements in the planet’s mantle. The amount of energy this heat translates into is quite impressive. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, just 33,000 feet below the Earth’s surface, there is 50,000 times more energy than the energy all the oil and gas in the world can produce. This energy can be harnessed and used for heating and power generation.

However, there is a tricky aspect to it. First of all, 33,000 feet is quite deep, and getting to this depth to tap the planet’s sub-crust heat is both technologically challenging and expensive. This has made geothermal an energy source with limited practical applications in locations where the heat is closer to the surface, notably Iceland. Yet some believe fracking can help make it easier to tap that heat, and the Department of Energy’s FORGE laboratory is putting this belief to the test.

The purpose of the test is to literally create a water reservoir in a rock formation by injecting water deep into the rock, using hydraulic fracturing to open up space for the water, and then, once it heats up there, draw it out and use it for heating or power generation. The big question is whether the water heated up in the rock would stay hot enough for power generation or cool too quickly to use it for these purposes.

“There’s potential,” Annick Adjei, a senior research analyst at Wood Mackenzie, told Bloomberg. “But the risk is really in repeatability. We need a bit more in the way of milestones to see how things will go.”

According to the Department of Energy, there have been some positive results from earlier tests that encourage optimism. In its news release about the current test, the DoE said that two years ago FORGE had successfully stimulated the injection and production wells, meaning they managed to replicate a fracking process that traps water in the rock for an extended period. It then started injecting water at a rate of 10 barrels per minute. The water heated to temperatures of 370 F. That test lasted 30 days. The one currently taking place in Utah will last up to four months in order to generate more reliable data.

“The positive results achieved by the [FORGE] project over the past few years have been very beneficial to the industry…this extended circulation will provide answers to the pressing questions about thermal decline and water loss, allowing geothermal companies to continue growing and to flourish,” the head of FORGE, principal investigator Dr. Kristie McLin, said.

Promising results are one part of the flourishing equation. Costs, unfortunately, are another. For all its potential, geothermal remains a rather expensive way to generate energy when compared with gas or coal, for instance. The closed-loop system that FORGE is testing in Utah could expand the areas where we could utilize the Earth’s heat, so to speak, but the costs would need to come down first in order to make the technology truly commercial.

The possibly ironic part is that the oil and gas industry has been indispensable for the geothermal industry because it is the industry that knows how to drill deep and (relatively) cheaply. If there is one industry that can make the commercial viability case for geothermal, it would be oil and gas.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has issued 194 licences, permits and certifications across Nigeria’s electricity market in 2025, representing a 15.5% increase from the 168 approvals recorded in 2024.

The increase reflects continued regulatory activity across both conventional and decentralised electricity segments, particularly in mini-grid development and electricity metering.

NERC disclosed this in its 2025 Annual Report, with the approvals covering electricity generation, distribution, trading, mini-grids and metering activities.

The regulator revealed that mini-grid permits accounted for the largest number of approvals in 2025, with NERC issuing 64 permits.

The report further shows that Meter Service Providers received 43 approvals, while Meter Asset Providers accounted for 30. Captive power projects received 31 licences.

NERC also issued seven licences for electricity distribution networks (IEDN), six off-grid generation licences, five embedded generation licences and six trading licences.

According to NERC, two on-grid generation licences were issued during the year.

The regulator’s 2025 approvals were therefore heavily concentrated in distributed generation and metering, with mini-grids, captive power and metering-related permits accounting for 168 of the 194 approvals.

In 2024, NERC issued 168 licences, permits and registrations across the sector, the report stated.

The approvals included 22 off-grid generation licences, 39 Meter Asset Provider (MAP) permits, 36 Meter Service Provider permits, 27 mini-grid permits and 24 captive power licences.

NERC also issued nine trading licences, seven mini-grid registrations, three on-grid generation licences and one System Operator licence.

The composition of approvals changed significantly in 2025, with the regulator issuing substantially more mini-grid permits while approvals for Meter Asset Providers and Meter Service Providers also remained significant.

In April, NERC issued the Mini-Grid Regulations 2026 aimed at improving electricity access across Nigeria, particularly in underserved and unserved communities.

Recall that the NERC had issued a new directive introducing stricter monitoring and transparency requirements for Nigeria’s power transmission system.