The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) has selected a clean energy technology company for developing a first-of-its-kind tool that will use science-based machine learning and data analytics to visualize key subsurface features and quickly and accurately reveal how the subsurface behaves.

DOE will award $900,000 to Petrolern LLC as the Phase 2 winner of FECM’s Science-informed Machine Learning to Accelerate Real Time (SMART) Visualization Platform (VP) Prize Challenge.

The Atlanta-based company will receive the prize award for their work during Phase 2 in developing the GeoDeck platform, a web-based tool submitted as a prototype in the first phase of the SMART VP prize challenge. This innovative tool is expected to transform how scientists, engineers, regulators and the public interact with the subsurface by providing real-time visualizations of subterranean fluid flows, fractures and other features.

In July 2021, DOE-FEMC selected four Phase 1 winners for their prototype platforms or mockups that demonstrated a user-friendly visualization platform. The purpose of each design was to create a visualization tool that allows non-experts and experts alike to interact directly with subsurface data and answer important subsurface questions about reservoir behavior, reservoir composition, injection patterns, uncertainty in measurements and other critical issues.

Such visualizations can enhance decision-making for safer subsurface operations, including carbon dioxide or hydrogen storage, geothermal energy development and oil and gas production, and reduce the environmental footprint of such operations.

Phase 1 winners were awarded $150,000 for their innovative prototypes and given the opportunity to compete in Phase 2. Phase 2 required participants to further develop their visualization platform to incorporate the data and algorithms supplied by the SMART Team through the EDX platform and virtual workshops.

After 10 months of development over Phase 2, participants submitted their completed designs. A review panel then judged the completed prototypes based on functionality, user-friendliness and visual appeal, and innovation.

Petrolern’s GeoDesk platform is designed to make the interactions between scientific variables and their spatial and temporal dimensions straightforward and intuitive.

“A thorough understanding of the subsurface is necessary to reduce risks and increase the efficiency of enhanced and unconventional oil and natural gas recovery, geothermal energy technologies, geological carbon storage and other operations,” said Kylee Underwood, who served as prize challenge manager for FECM’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL).

“At NETL, we are excited to collaborate with industry through a prize competition and bring this important technology forward,” Underwood said.

NETL is a DOE national laboratory that drives innovation and delivers technological solutions for an environmentally sustainable and prosperous energy future. By leveraging its world-class talent and research facilities, NETL is ensuring affordable, abundant and reliable energy that drives a robust economy and national security, while developing technologies to manage carbon across the full life cycle, enabling environmental sustainability for all Americans.

For more information about the SMART VP Prize Challenge, visit our webpage.