Photo Credit: UNR

US Geothermal, developer and operator of the Raft River project in Idaho, announced their intent to acquire the assets of Empire Geothermal consisting of a 4.8MW (nameplate) binary plant and over 28,000 acres of land for $16.6M. The transaction details are complex, the press release goes into detail about how the deal is structured and the timing of the transaction.

The plant has been in operation since 1987 and consists of 4, 1.2MW binary units and a cooling tower arrangement. The average output of the plant has been in the 3MW range for sometime with the plant producing approximately 35,000 MWh gross and selling ~25,000 MWh in 2006. The difference in the gross and net loads are accounted for in the operation of the binary plant (pumping of fluids primarily for cooling and reinjection.)

The land in question consists of the San Emidio Desert (22k acres plus the plant) and Granite Creek near Gerlach, Nevada. USG estimates they can boost the output of the Empire plant to 10MW with the new technology available since 1987 and potentially develop up to a 40 MW plant across the other prospects.