In Kenya’s geologically active Olkaria region, EcoCloud broke ground on their “Project Eagle” geothermal-powered data center at the KenGen Green Energy Park in 2023. This project represents a perfect synergy between geological resources and modern computing needs. The data center is being built directly at the geothermal source, eliminating transmission losses and delays while leveraging Kenya’s position along the Great Rift Valley to access abundant geothermal resources. Rather than waiting years for traditional grid expansion, this microgrid approach allows the company to deploy computing infrastructure rapidly in a region where conventional power delivery would be prohibitively expensive or time-consuming.
This real-world example illustrates the evolving role of geoscience in meeting modern energy challenges. The skills that once primarily served petroleum exploration are now being applied to identify subsurface resources that can power our increasingly digital world. The professional transition from mapping petroleum reservoirs a decade ago to developing geothermal resources for data centers today demonstrates how geoscientists are building crucial bridges between our energy past and our digital future.
Why Microgrids Matter Now More Than Ever
The electrical infrastructure across much of the world is facing unprecedented challenges as we enter 2025. Supply chain disruptions have delayed transmission line and transformer deliveries by years in many regions. Aging infrastructure requires massive investments to replace and upgrade components that in some cases date back to the 1960s and ‘70s. Electricity demand is exploding due to AI computing, electric vehicles and data centers, with an increase in AI-related power consumption by more than 25 percent annually since 2022 according to industry reports. Simultaneously, rapid demographic shifts are creating power needs in previously underdeveloped areas, particularly in parts of Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America where population growth has outpaced infrastructure development.
The traditional solution of building more centralized power plants and long-distance transmission lines simply cannot keep pace with these developments. Construction of major transmission projects typically takes 7-10 years from planning to completion, and costs have skyrocketed since 2021 due to inflation and material shortages. Meanwhile, data center operators and growing communities need power solutions in months, not decades. This timing mismatch creates a perfect opportunity for microgrids powered by geothermal or natural gas resources to offer a compelling alternative. Rather than waiting for the grid to catch up, these localized energy systems can be deployed relatively quickly to provide reliable, sustainable power where it’s needed most.
What Are Microgrids, and Why Do They Matter for Geoscientists?
A microgrid is essentially a localized energy network. It can operate in connection to the traditional grid or independently in what engineers call “island mode.” For geoscientists, microgrids represent an exciting opportunity to apply subsurface expertise to solving pressing energy challenges. Many geoscientists might not immediately recognize how central their skills are to this energy transition. However, the process of finding, characterizing and developing geothermal resources or natural gas deposits suitable for microgrid projects requires exactly the subsurface knowledge that geologists, geophysicists, and petroleum engineers have developed over decades of professional practice.
The connection between traditional geoscience skills and modern microgrid development is clear and direct. Expertise in subsurface characterization that was once primarily applied to oil and gas exploration is equally valuable for geothermal development. Skills in 3-D modeling, fault analysis, permeability assessment and reservoir simulation transfer directly to enhanced geothermal systems. This professional continuity allows experienced earth scientists to apply their deep knowledge in new contexts as energy systems evolve.
Real-World Examples
- Kenya’s Olkaria Geothermal Hub: In Kenya, where population growth has far outpaced grid expansion since 2010, the KenGen Green Energy Park at Olkaria has become a model for geothermal-powered microgrids. Companies like EcoCloud have built data centers directly at the geothermal source, eliminating transmission losses and delays. What makes Olkaria remarkable is how it leverages Kenya’s position along the Great Rift Valley to access geothermal resources. In 2023, EcoCloud broke ground on their “Project Eagle” geothermal-powered data center, according to industry reports. Rather than waiting decades for grid expansion, these microgrids allow communities and businesses to leapfrog infrastructure constraints while utilizing the region’s abundant volcanic heat resources.
- U.S. Permian Basin: In West Texas, Sharon AI recently expanded a behind-the-meter agreement with New Era Helium in late 2024 to power a 250-megawatt data center directly in the Permian Basin. This microgrid utilizes abundant natural gas resources that would otherwise be flared, creating a win-win for both the environment and computing needs. This project effectively turns what was once a waste product into high-value computing power. The expertise in midstream gas gathering systems that has been developed over decades in the Permian Basin has proven invaluable for designing the gas supply infrastructure for these power systems.
- Indonesia’s Island Microgrids: Indonesia faces unique challenges with its population spread across 70,000 islands. Traditional grid extension is impractical or impossible in many areas. Through programs like Bright Indonesia, which launched in 2017, natural gas and geothermal-powered microgrids have increased electrification from 66 percent to more than 88 percent of the population. The initiative aimed to provide 1 gigawatt of electricity to more than 12,000 villages by 2019. What’s particularly interesting about Indonesia’s case is how geological mapping of the archipelago’s volcanic activity directly informed microgrid siting decisions, demonstrating the critical role of geoscience in microgrid development.
The Geoscientist’s Roadmap to Microgrid Development
u Site Geohazard Survey: The microgrid development journey begins before anyone breaks ground. Modern geological assessment increasingly utilizes drone and satellite technology to identify potential sites and hazards. The profession has evolved dramatically in recent years. Site surveys that once required weeks of field work with traditional tools can now be completed using drones with magnetometry equipment to map subsurface features and identify faults in a single afternoon, creating enormous efficiency gains.
Key technologies now employed in this initial phase include magnetometry surveys to detect subsurface features and potential legacy infrastructure, photogrammetry mapping using drones to create centimeter-precise surface models, and LiDAR combined with thermal imaging to identify terrain features and thermal anomalies. These advanced survey methods have compressed site assessment timelines from months to weeks while simultaneously improving data quality and coverage, making projects more economically viable.
- Environmental Assessment: Environmental considerations are paramount in microgrid development, particularly for sites with geothermal or natural gas resources. Geoscientists with environmental expertise play a critical role by designing comprehensive soil sampling programs, mapping groundwater resources and flow patterns, identifying surface water features and seasonal variations, and documenting ecosystems and sensitive habitats.
What often goes unrecognized is how crucial these environmental assessments are for project success. Since 2020, several high-profile microgrid projects have faced multi-year delays because they didn’t properly characterize groundwater conditions early in the development process. Getting these environmental assessments right from day one can save projects from significant regulatory and construction complications later in the development cycle.
- Resource Mapping: This phase is where geoscientists truly demonstrate their value. Accurately characterizing the subsurface resource – whether geothermal or natural gas – determines the entire project’s viability and long-term success. For geothermal resources, the process involves drilling temperature gradient wells to establish thermal profiles, conducting magnetotelluric and seismic surveys to map subsurface structures, analyzing fault systems and fracture networks, and developing 3-D heat flow models to estimate production capacity over the projected lifetime of the facility.
For natural gas resources, geoscientists focus on assessing reserves and production sustainability, modeling expected production rates over the project lifetime (typically 20-30 years for a microgrid application), characterizing gas composition and impurities that might affect equipment selection, and simulating reservoir performance under various operational scenarios. Industry experience since 2020 has repeatedly demonstrated that detailed work in this phase is critical to project success. Companies that rush through resource characterization have frequently discovered their power generation capacity was significantly lower than projected, undermining project economics. There is simply no substitute for thorough subsurface analysis conducted by experienced geoscientists.
- Water Resource Characterization: Water plays a crucial but often underappreciated role in microgrid power generation. Whether for cooling systems or steam generation, water availability can determine project feasibility. In water-scarce regions like West Texas, innovative approaches have been developed since 2022 to use produced water from oil operations for cooling natural gas turbines. By employing solar thermal desalination processes, operators have transformed what was previously a waste disposal problem into a valuable resource for their microgrids.
Key considerations in this phase include quantifying available water from various sources (surface, groundwater, and produced water), analyzing water quality for treatment requirements specific to power generation applications, modeling sustainable withdrawal rates that won’t deplete aquifers, and evaluating water rights and regulatory constraints that might affect operations. As climate change intensifies water scarcity in many regions, this aspect of microgrid development has become increasingly critical to project success.
- Putting it all together: The final phase integrates geoscience knowledge with power generation technology selection. This requires close collaboration between geoscientists and electrical engineers to match resource characteristics with appropriate generation systems. For geothermal resources, options include binary cycle systems for moderate temperature resources (100-180-degress Celsius) and flash steam systems for higher temperature resources (higher than 180 degrees). The selection depends directly on the subsurface characterization provided by geoscientists.
For natural gas resources, choices include combined cycle gas turbines for larger installations (typically above 50 megawatts), aeroderivative gas turbines for rapid deployment and operational flexibility, and reciprocating engines for smaller installations with variable loads. Enchanted Rock has deployed hundreds of natural gas microgrids across the United States since 2019, including a project for Microsoft in San Jose, California announced in 2024. According to reporting from Fierce, this specific microgrid is designed to handle spikes in power demand and provide peak shaving capabilities for the data center. The exciting aspect of microgrid development is that these systems are customized to maximize the specific resource characteristics of each site, creating truly optimized energy systems.
The Path Forward: Community-Level Solutions
The most promising aspect of microgrids is their scalability for community-level solutions, particularly in areas experiencing rapid demographic growth. The impact of microgrids in developing regions is already impressive. Beyond the Grid, an initiative of the United States Government launched to make 30,000 megawatts of new and clean electricity available to sub-Saharan Africa, has already created 56 power projects generating 3,481 megawatts of power connected to 14.8 million homes and businesses across the region, according to program reports.
India has seen similar success to Indonesia’s with Smart Power India, launched in 2015 by the Rockefeller Foundation. The program aimed to provide renewable microgrid solutions to at least 25 million Indians across six states, with the foundation investing $20 million to achieve this electrification goal in five years. Recent reports indicate that Smart Power India has established more than 160 microgrid solutions across four Indian states: Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and Rajasthan. These microgrids are more than 80-percent solar-powered, with power capacity ranging from 10 to 70 kilowatts, bringing sustainable electricity to more than 70,000 people in remote areas.
The Geoscientist’s Moment
As data center power demands surge and grid constraints intensify, microgrids powered by geothermal and natural gas resources represent one of our most practical near-term solutions. According to a March 2025 report from the Rhodium Group, advanced geothermal power could supply nearly two-thirds of new data center demand by 2030, which would quadruple the amount of geothermal power capacity in the United States from 4 gigawatts to about 16 gigawatts. In the western United States, where geothermal resources are more plentiful, the technology could provide 100 percent of new data center demand. Phoenix alone could add 3.8 gigawatts of data center capacity without building a single new conventional power plant.
Companies like Fervo Energy, founded by former oil and gas engineers, are expanding geothermal’s potential using horizontal drilling techniques perfected over the last few decades. The company raised more than $200 million in 2024 after achieving significant cost reductions in well drilling. Other innovative startups like Bedrock Energy are drilling deep to minimize geothermal’s footprint, allowing space-constrained office buildings and data centers to extract more power from limited land areas. Quaise Energy is developing technology that uses microwaves generated by gyrotrons to vaporize rock, potentially drilling as deep as 12.4 miles to access rocks that are nearly 1,000-degrees Fahrenheit year-round.
For geoscientists, this transition presents an unparalleled opportunity to apply deep subsurface knowledge to solving urgent energy challenges. The skills honed in traditional energy exploration are precisely those needed to develop the next generation of localized power systems. According to industry reports from late 2024, Asia-Pacific microgrid projects are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.1 percent through 2030, reaching a projected revenue of more than $54 billion. With the global microgrid market projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 20.7 percent from 2024 to 2032 according to Credence Research, the opportunities for geoscientists in this field will continue to expand, creating new career paths at the intersection of traditional earth science and modern energy solutions.