A Canadian geothermal company has just landed a USD 38 million investment to launch a new underground heat pump that doesn’t require drilling into hot rock, using water, or releasing emissions to produce energy.
Alberta-based geothermal power generation firm Rodatherm Energy Corporation secured the Series A investment from TDK Ventures, the corporate venture-capital subsidiary of TDK Corporation.
The funding will help the firm advance its innovative closed-loop geothermal system (AGS) technology, which promises to deliver affordable, long-term, sustainable energy.
The system is fully cased, pressurized, and optimized for sedimentary basins to enable conductive and convective heat transfer into the working fluid.
“This investment reflects TDK Ventures’ commitment to supporting transformative technologies that address critical global challenges, including the urgent need for clean and affordable energy,” Nicolas Sauvage, TDK Ventures president, stated.
Turning heat into power
In contrast to traditional geothermal plants that rely on drilling into hot rock and interacting directly with underground reservoirs, the firm’s patented AGS system is entirely closed-loop and fully cased.
Essentially a massive underground heat pump, the AGS is a modular, pressurized system that mimics the thermodynamics of surface heat pumps, but at a depth. It extracts the heat using a new working fluid that remains fully isolated from the ground.
This eliminates the need for fracking, steam, or groundwater extraction, while at the same time removing any risk of environmental contamination. Moreover, the system delivers 50 percent higher efficiency than conventional binary-cycle geothermal systems, using five times less fluid.
The system is optimized for sedimentary basins with high natural convection, which are areas that traditional geothermal approaches have largely overlooked. It additionally doesn’t use fresh water and has a small, energy-dense surface footprint.
Meanwhile, heat is transferred through conduction and convection into the isolated fluid, which is then routed directly into a turbine for power generation.
New geothermal systems
According to Rodatherm, the system can operate in almost any geological setting because it is fully sealed and pressurized. It is also engineered to run for decades with minimal maintenance.
The company will now use the funds to build its first pilot system in Utah. It aims to use the site to validate its system’s cost-efficiency, deploy it within CapEx and OpEx projections, and energy conversion performance.
Sauvage emphasized that geothermal energy is well-positioned to contribute significantly to near-term electricity generation. He believes Rodatherm’s closed-loop system has the potential to unlock reliable, clean power for millions.
Though an ambitious mission, Sauvage said he’s proud to help accelerate the transition to clean geothermal energy. “We are thrilled to have TDK Ventures join our valued group of investors,” he concluded in a press release.
Rodatherm’s USD 38 million Series A round is backed by TDK Ventures through its USD 150 million Fund EX1. It targets early-stage investments in energy transition, electrification, and decarbonization within the US and Europe.