A range of technologies are increasingly positioned to go the final mile to help the power sector achieve zero emissions. This blog reviews the most-often discussed technologies in the Northwest context, covering their progress towards commercialization, development in the region, and the role they could eventually play in the region’s grid.
Companies are advancing a new generation of enhanced geothermal technologies that could revolutionize the role of geothermal in the power system. We previously wrote about these technology developments, and progress towards widespread commercialization is ongoing. Industry leader Fervo Energy continues to reduce drilling time while drilling deeper, hotter wells, and the company reached a milestone in May 2026 as the first next-generation geothermal firm to launch an initial public offering.
Enhanced geothermal’s rapid technical and economic improvements make it hard to accurately incorporate enhanced geothermal into energy planning models, which must assign a cost and total availability to each technology. For example, CETI’s Net-Zero Northwest study did not include enhanced geothermal as a resource because technologies were not commercialized enough to be included in the assumptions in 2021.
Geothermal is also not included in the Western Transmission Expansion Coalition’s 20-year capacity expansion modeling, but is increasingly discussed in utility Integrated Resource Plans, such as Seattle City Light and Snohomish PUD, as a potential future resource.
Across the Northwest, new geothermal technologies stand out as a potential clean, firm resource that could fill gaps in the region’s generating stack. Two pilot projects pursuing superhot geothermal are under development at Central Oregon’s Newberry Volcano. The first pilot project is led by Quaise, who closed a Series B funding round with $134 million to fund Project Obsidian, which is expected to come online in 2030 as a 50 MW power plant before scaling to 250 MW. The second project is led by Mazama Energy and is currently the world’s hottest geothermal system, reaching 629 degrees Fahrenheit. The company plans to pivot to a 15 MW pilot system this year that will scale to 200 MW in the future.
While no geothermal projects are currently proposed for development in Washington, the state’s Department of Ecology is leading a collaborative process to explore the risks and opportunities of geothermal energy development. The process will focus on three areas that the Washington Geological Survey has identified as having the highest geothermal potential: Mount Baker, Mount St. Helens, and the Wind River Valley (along the Columbia River, south of Mount St. Helens). The Washington Geological Survey also created an interactive Storymap resource to learn about geothermal energy in Washington.
Idaho has a long history of tapping geothermal resources for power, and high interest in developing enhanced geothermal projects in the future. Nearly 100,000 acres are under lease for geothermal exploration or development in the state, and Idaho is participating in the Geothermal Power Accelerator, a collaboration run by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Association of State Energy Officials.
Montana does not currently have geothermal facilities but is participating in the Geothermal Power Accelerator. Montana’s governor also created an Energy Advisory Council that will include geothermal in an upcoming report with recommendations for increasing the supply of affordable and reliable energy options (due September 2026).
The definition of long duration energy storage varies but is generally capable of storing energy from eight hours to multiple months and can include chemical, thermal, or mechanical storage. Energy storage is not a way of generating electricity; it still requires a source such as wind or solar. However, storage can be a critical part of an adequate grid by saving excess energy for when it is needed.
New technologies are emerging to provide long duration storage. Options relevant to the Northwest include Form Energy’s iron-air batteries capable of 100-hours of dispatch, Redwood Material’s recycled EV batteries, pumped hydro such as Oregon’s Swan Lake project, and compressed air energy storage such as Hydrostor’s technology .
Long duration storage is an increasingly common selection in Northwest utility integrated resource plans. For example, Idaho Power’s 2025 IRP selects 50 MW of 100-hour storage in 2045. PacifiCorp’s 2025 IRP includes 523 MW of 100-hour iron-air battery storage as a proxy. It remains to be determined which long duration storage technologies will be most feasible, economically viable, and fit the needs of Northwest utilities.
Two separate evolutions of nuclear power are underway, and the Northwest is a hub for both.
Small modular reactors (SMRs) are nuclear reactors up to 300 MW that can be assembled at a factory and transported for installation. There are several emerging SMR designs, some of which use the same core coolant and fuel technologies as conventional nuclear plants and others that use newer technologies. In theory, SMRs may be more cost-effective and built faster than conventional nuclear plants, and their modular nature makes it possible to expand a project when demand increases.
Energy Northwest, with funding from Amazon, is developing an SMR project near the existing Columbia Generating Station nuclear facility in Richland, Washington. The facility plans to use X-energy’s Xe-100 reactors, which utilize helium as a coolant instead of water. Amazon will purchase the power from the first four modules, each of which has a nameplate capacity of 80 MW. The facility can accommodate eight additional modules for a total of 960 MW. For comparison, the Columbia Generating Station’s current capacity is ~1200 MW. The X-energy project, while one of the more advanced SMR projects in the nation, has not yet submitted a license application nor received construction permits from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Nuclear fusion power is another next-generation technology currently in development that is largely considered to be safer than standard nuclear fission—which is the reaction in SMRs and conventional reactors—because the radioactive waste produced has a much shorter half-life, and the reaction stops if conditions are not maintained, which reduces the risk of major incidents.
Everett, WA-headquartered Helion Energy has secured the regulatory licenses and begun construction on its nuclear fusion Orion project in Malaga, in Chelan County. The project is funded by a power purchase agreement with Microsoft for at least 50 MW of power, with initial operations expected in 2028.
One potential use for hydrogen in a decarbonized economy is to power turbines to generate electricity, much like natural gas is used today. Combined with captured carbon dioxide, hydrogen forms methane, which is natural gas. This substitution of green hydrogen for gas fits more easily into utility planning than many other emerging technologies, making it an appealing clean energy proxy in utility plans. For example, Puget Sound Energy included “Clean Energy Transformation Act-compliant peaking capacity” in its 2023 Electric Progress Report, with a note that peakers would use non-emitting hydrogen (or biodiesel fuel).
Green hydrogen requires a renewable energy source such as wind or solar to power the electrolysis process that produces the hydrogen. Ideally, electrolysis could happen at times when there is excess clean power on the grid. Once it is produced, hydrogen can be stored until the grid needs it to produce electricity again. Storage is an advantage of hydrogen as a clean electricity source, but it comes at the cost of losing energy—possibly over half of the original electricity—in the conversion from electricity to hydrogen and back to electricity. Additionally, electricity generation must compete economically with other uses of green hydrogen.
There is currently no green hydrogen production in the Northwest. Northwest electric utilities could theoretically import green hydrogen from other regions to use in power plants, but supply is limited with only one green hydrogen production facility currently online in the western United States (in California) and three more under construction as of April 2025.
Initiatives such as the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub may change hydrogen availability in the future. However, Department of Energy funding cuts have curtailed the proposed hydrogen hub, and the hub’s proposed projects were focused on non-power uses for hydrogen including industry and transportation.
In carbon capture and storage (CCS), carbon dioxide is chemically removed from the emissions of a fossil fuel power plant then compressed and transported through a pipeline to a storage site. The storage site is generally an underground geological formation that can store the carbon and keep it from escaping back to the surface. Often, these formations previously held gas or oil. If carbon can be effectively captured and stored, fossil fuel plants in the Northwest can continue to run while reducing or eliminating their emissions, making CCS a possible tool for clean, firm electricity.
A 2009 project led by the Pacific Northwest National Lab at Wallula Gap in southeastern Washington showed that basalt formations can store carbon by pumping carbon dioxide into a 4,000 foot well drilled near the Columbia River. Sixty percent of the carbon crystallized into minerals within two years of injection, with the rest expected to crystallize at a slower rate over time. These kinds of formations are widespread around the Columbia River, and Montana’s saline formations are also recognized for sequestration potential, meaning that the Northwest has significant carbon storage potential.
While carbon capture currently operates in some industrial contexts, it is not yet commercialized on fossil fuel power plants. The Energy Information Administration reports that no U.S. power sector emissions were captured in 2025, but forecasts growth over the next decade due to the 45Q federal tax credit for captured carbon. The credit also applies to carbon captured and used for enhanced oil recovery, in which CO2 is injected into oil fields to increase output.
Overall, the role CCS will play in decarbonizing the Northwest’s grid remains uncertain.
As the Northwest moves towards a zero-emission power system, a range of emerging technologies could help fill gaps that today’s resources cannot. Enhanced geothermal, long duration energy storage, next-generation nuclear, green hydrogen, and carbon capture each offer different strengths and face different challenges. Ongoing investment and project development across the region will be critical to reach widespread deployment in a clean energy future.
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