Join Us in Reno at the GRC2022

Read Paul Thomsen article 1st - The Increasing Value of Geothermal in the West

The Geothermal Rising Conference (GRC) is the geothermal industry’s flagship annual conference, reflecting the global nature of the geothermal industry and Ormat will be there to meet you and updae you on our development and changes in the market.

Mr. Paul Thomsen, Ormat's VP of Business Development will lecture about THE INCREASING VALUE OF GEOTHERMAL IN THE WEST.

How geothermal now yields the highest economic value of any renewable resource in California and the surrounding region.

Since 2017, we have been evaluating the increasing economic value of geothermal energy to potential buyers in California and other Western states (Orenstein and Thomsen, 2017, Thomsen 2018a, Thomsen 2020). The updated geothermal value estimates in this paper are based on recent historical and forecasted wholesale energy, capacity, and renewable energy credit (REC) market prices, in addition to testing how geothermal costs affect selection in resource planning models. Current trends in wholesale prices for these products, reviewed in this paper, have confirmed that geothermal currently has a significantly higher economic value than a stand-alone solar PV plant in high solar regions such as California. While the value comparison between geothermal and renewable generation with energy storage (i.e., hybrids) is more complex, this paper and some of the prior ones also explore those relationships. As renewable penetration increases, planning models suggest that an incremental megawatt-hour (MWh) of geothermal displaces multiple MWh of solar and storage (Thomsen 2018b, 2021). This result shows the importance of combining wholesale market forecasts with planning analyses to fully understand geothermal's evolving value over the coming decades.

Read the full article