Building the engineering foundations
In June 2023, EAPOSYS published the EAPOLAB White Paper – Advanced Geothermal Systems Reference Guide, setting out a collaborative framework to accelerate AGS from emerging technology toward full-scale demonstration and repeatable deployment.
The White Paper was grounded in engineering work developed alongside the drilling engineers of Well Engineering Partners (WEP). Together, we translated the EAPOSYS system architecture into a Basis of Design, examining how an incremental closed-loop geothermal system could actually be drilled, constructed and progressively expanded using existing deep-drilling technologies.
The work addressed the practical foundations of the system: from well trajectories, multilateral construction and well interception to drillability, wellbore stability, costs and techno-economic optimization. Importantly, the resulting design preserved the principle of incrementality: successive underground heat-harvesting loops could be added while allowing completed sections of the system to enter production.
From engineering design to EAPOLAB
The work addressed the practical foundations of the system: from well trajectories, multilateral construction and well interception to drillability, wellbore stability, costs and techno-economic optimization. Importantly, the resulting design preserved the principle of incrementality: successive underground heat-harvesting loops could be added while allowing completed sections of the system to enter production.Building on this engineering basis, EAPOLAB proposed bringing together government, research, industry and finance around a real underground field laboratory where technologies could be developed, integrated and operated at full scale.
The ambition extended beyond drilling. EAPOLAB was conceived to address the engineering, environmental, energy, societal and financial dimensions required to make AGS viable as long-term energy infrastructure — progressing from a first demonstration toward a Reference AGS Deployment Guide supporting replication elsewhere.
The White Paper established a principle that continues to guide EAPOSYS: demonstration is not the end goal; it is the starting point for predictable, scalable deployment.
