US Department of Energy awards $338m to spur geothermal projects

30 October 2009

The US Department of Energy Secretary (DOE) has awarded $338m in Recovery Act funding to the exploration and development of new geothermal fields and research into advanced geothermal technologies.

These grants will support 123 projects in 39 states, with recipients including private industry, academic institutions, tribal entities, local governments, and DOE’s National Laboratories. The grants will be matched with an additional $353m in private and non-federal cost-share funds.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said, ‘The US is blessed with vast geothermal energy resources, which hold enormous potential to heat our homes and power our economy.’

‘These investments in America’s technological innovation will allow us to capture more of this clean, carbon free energy at a lower cost than ever before. We will create thousands of jobs, boost our economy and help to jumpstart the geothermal industry across the US,’ he added.

The grants are directed towards identifying and developing new geothermal fields and reducing the upfront risk associated with geothermal development through innovative exploration and drilling projects and data development and collection. In addition, the grants will support the deployment and creative financing approaches for ground source heat pump demonstration projects across the country.

Up to $98.1m of the funding is being awarded to 24 innovative exploration and drilling projects. Other projects awarded with the round of funding include 11 coproduced, geo-pressured and low temperature projects, three enhanced geothermal systems demonstrations, research into 45 enhanced geothermal systems components, three geothermal data development projects and 37 ground source heat pump demonstrations.

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Tags: geothermal

This story was published on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 7:18 pm and is filed under North America, companies, geothermal. You can follow any responses to article entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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