U.S. Geothermal Electricity Siting Regulation and Zoning Ordinances (2026)
A machine-readable collection of documented state and local ordinances governing utility-scale geothermal electricity projects throughout the United States. The data were compiled using the Infrastructure Continuous Ordinance Mapping for Planning and Siting Systems (INFRA-COMPASS) tool, which uses Large Language Models (LLMs) to identify and extract ordinance requirements for geothermal exploration, drilling, wells, power plants, and related infrastructure. The data include requirements such as setbacks, drilling hours, noise and height limits, zoning districts, permits, fencing, lighting, visual and seismic studies, bonding, decommissioning, and prohibitions. Extracted records include supporting ordinance excerpts and section references when available. URLs for the source documents are included in the accompanying spreadsheet.
The ordinance GeoPackage file included below contains the jurisdiction shapes for each ordinance. Note that the ordinance GeoPackage file is formatted for ingestion by NLR's reVX setbacks tool and therefore does not contain any of the state-level regulations.
A list of all jurisdictions searched during this collection is provided in CSV and GeoPackage format.
**NOTE**: This data was collected with the help of generative AI. The Large Language Models used for this effort make mistakes. Always validate the data for critical use cases.
INFRA-COMPASS version used for collection: v0.18.0
LLMs used for collection: OpenAI GPT-4 (document/content filter), OpenAI GPT-5 (value extraction)
Citation Formats
TY - DATA
AB - A machine-readable collection of documented state and local ordinances governing utility-scale geothermal electricity projects throughout the United States. The data were compiled using the Infrastructure Continuous Ordinance Mapping for Planning and Siting Systems (INFRA-COMPASS) tool, which uses Large Language Models (LLMs) to identify and extract ordinance requirements for geothermal exploration, drilling, wells, power plants, and related infrastructure. The data include requirements such as setbacks, drilling hours, noise and height limits, zoning districts, permits, fencing, lighting, visual and seismic studies, bonding, decommissioning, and prohibitions. Extracted records include supporting ordinance excerpts and section references when available. URLs for the source documents are included in the accompanying spreadsheet.
The ordinance GeoPackage file included below contains the jurisdiction shapes for each ordinance. Note that the ordinance GeoPackage file is formatted for ingestion by NLR's reVX setbacks tool and therefore does not contain any of the state-level regulations.
A list of all jurisdictions searched during this collection is provided in CSV and GeoPackage format.
**NOTE**: This data was collected with the help of generative AI. The Large Language Models used for this effort make mistakes. Always validate the data for critical use cases.
INFRA-COMPASS version used for collection: v0.18.0
LLMs used for collection: OpenAI GPT-4 (document/content filter), OpenAI GPT-5 (value extraction)
AU - Pullutasig, Byron
A2 - Rivard, Tim
A3 - Barrons, Jacob
A4 - Tapiawala, Shray
A5 - Sitler, Aidan
A6 - Pinchuk, Paul
A7 - Sky, Haiku
A8 - Levine, Aaron
DB - Open Energy Data Initiative (OEDI)
DP - Open EI | National Laboratory of the Rockies
DO -
KW - Geothermal
KW - energy
KW - power
KW - utility
KW - well
KW - exploration
KW - drilling
KW - noise
KW - setbacks
KW - permits
KW - siting
KW - local
KW - citations
KW - AI
KW - LLM
KW - COMPASS
KW - INFRA-COMPASS
KW - machine readable
LA - English
DA - 2026/09/21
PY - 2026
PB - National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR)
T1 - U.S. Geothermal Electricity Siting Regulation and Zoning Ordinances (2026)
UR - https://data.openei.org/submissions/8780
ER -
Pullutasig, Byron, et al. U.S. Geothermal Electricity Siting Regulation and Zoning Ordinances (2026). National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), 21 September, 2026, Open Energy Data Initiative (OEDI). https://data.openei.org/submissions/8780.
Pullutasig, B., Rivard, T., Barrons, J., Tapiawala, S., Sitler, A., Pinchuk, P., Sky, H., & Levine, A. (2026). U.S. Geothermal Electricity Siting Regulation and Zoning Ordinances (2026). [Data set]. Open Energy Data Initiative (OEDI). National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR). https://data.openei.org/submissions/8780
Pullutasig, Byron, Tim Rivard, Jacob Barrons, Shray Tapiawala, Aidan Sitler, Paul Pinchuk, Haiku Sky, and Aaron Levine. U.S. Geothermal Electricity Siting Regulation and Zoning Ordinances (2026). National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), September, 21, 2026. Distributed by Open Energy Data Initiative (OEDI). https://data.openei.org/submissions/8780
@misc{OEDI_Dataset_8780,
title = {U.S. Geothermal Electricity Siting Regulation and Zoning Ordinances (2026)},
author = {Pullutasig, Byron and Rivard, Tim and Barrons, Jacob and Tapiawala, Shray and Sitler, Aidan and Pinchuk, Paul and Sky, Haiku and Levine, Aaron},
abstractNote = {A machine-readable collection of documented state and local ordinances governing utility-scale geothermal electricity projects throughout the United States. The data were compiled using the Infrastructure Continuous Ordinance Mapping for Planning and Siting Systems (INFRA-COMPASS) tool, which uses Large Language Models (LLMs) to identify and extract ordinance requirements for geothermal exploration, drilling, wells, power plants, and related infrastructure. The data include requirements such as setbacks, drilling hours, noise and height limits, zoning districts, permits, fencing, lighting, visual and seismic studies, bonding, decommissioning, and prohibitions. Extracted records include supporting ordinance excerpts and section references when available. URLs for the source documents are included in the accompanying spreadsheet.
The ordinance GeoPackage file included below contains the jurisdiction shapes for each ordinance. Note that the ordinance GeoPackage file is formatted for ingestion by NLR's reVX setbacks tool and therefore does not contain any of the state-level regulations.
A list of all jurisdictions searched during this collection is provided in CSV and GeoPackage format.
**NOTE**: This data was collected with the help of generative AI. The Large Language Models used for this effort make mistakes. Always validate the data for critical use cases.
INFRA-COMPASS version used for collection: v0.18.0
LLMs used for collection: OpenAI GPT-4 (document/content filter), OpenAI GPT-5 (value extraction)},
url = {https://data.openei.org/submissions/8780},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {Open Energy Data Initiative (OEDI), National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), https://data.openei.org/submissions/8780},
note = {Accessed: 2026-09-23}
}
Details
Data from Sep 21, 2026
Last updated Sep 22, 2026
Submitted Sep 22, 2026
Organization
National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR)
Contact
NLR COMPASS Teeam
Authors
Research Areas
Keywords
Geothermal, energy, power, utility, well, exploration, drilling, noise, setbacks, permits, siting, local, citations, AI, LLM, COMPASS, INFRA-COMPASS, machine readableDOE Project Details
Project Name Mapping State and Local Ordinances and Codes Applicable to Environmental Reviews and Permitting of Energy Infrastructure
Project Number 54020
