There are also plans for new EGS projects in America, Britain, France and Germany.
With EGS, holes are drilled deep into hot rock and water is injected into the cracks.
Significantly more expensive than traditional hydrothermal resources, EGS remains a highly speculative technology: just two small facilities are in operation today.
At the moment only a few EGS plants exist worldwide, including a pilot plant in Soultz, France, and a small commercial plant in Landau, Germany.
Although EGS is truly the wild west of energy speculation, its outsized long-term potential is what has investors like Google most excited about companies like AltaRock.
Because the Earth gets hotter the deeper you drill, EGS could expand the reach of geothermal power enormously and provide access to a virtually inexhaustible energy resource.
Conservative estimates suggest just 2% of that energy could be tapped by EGS in practice, but even that would be far more than is needed to supply all of America's electricity.
Last year a study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said EGS could open up an additional 100, 000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S. by 2050, up from 2, 000 MW today.
Engineered geothermal systems (EGS) are based on a related principle, but they work even in parts of the world that are not volcanically active, by drilling thousands of metres underground to mimic the design of natural steam or hot-water reservoirs.
Researchers estimate the cost would start at about 9 cents a kilowatt-hour for the first EGS project and fall to as little as 4 cents, including construction, development and financing but not including any government subsidies that may be available.
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