In an update today, US Geothermal reports major progress on the 13MW Unit 1 plant at Raft River, Idaho:

• All major power plant equipment has been delivered to site and set on foundations.
• The prime electrical construction contract was awarded to Merit Electric Incorporated in May.
• Piping and electrical connections are proceeding on schedule.
• The control room and motor control center building has been erected and switchgear installed.
• The cooling tower is 95% complete.
• The geothermal injection pumps and motors have been set in place.
• High voltage interconnection to BPA substation with Idaho Power and Raft River Electrical Co-operative metering is nearing completion.
• The cooling water supply piping system is approximately 75% complete for initial operations.

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Today, Nevada Geothermal announced the continuation of their drilling program with work commencing on it’s third production well. When complete, the company projects generating some 31.25MW which it will sell to Nevada Power Company.

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Renewable Energy Access has an excellent article on this subject authored by Karl Gawell of the Geothermal Energy Association.

Q: I hear that there is geothermal power potential in the Gulf of Mexico. Is that true? Where is it located, and will it ever be developed? – Danielle J., Dallas, Texas

A: Good question. You’re right — considerable geothermal energy potential exists in the Gulf of Mexico and onshore in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi. Two types of geothermal resources are of particular interest in the Gulf area: “geopressured” geothermal and “oil field co-produced” geothermal resources.

Read more…

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Ormat and SCE agreed to a 50MW PPA yesterday, it was part of a larger 480MW set of agreements.

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In an article published today shows that the world is slowly waking up to geothermal:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Old Faithful and expensive contraptions in the basement that never really worked – that’s what many people think of when they think geothermal energy.

But thanks to advances in technology, a better political climate and rising electricity prices, geothermal is quickly losing its status as renewable energy’s most unloved sector. In fact, investment in the sector jumped nearly fourfold over the last two years, to about $100 million last year.

“This resource is available, and it could develop to 30 times what is currently used,” said Curt Robinson, executive director of the Geothermal Resources Council, an educational and professional organization.

“>Read more…

There are two issues with this article, one, there are enormous hydrothermal systems available to harvest (if only there was an exploration program to look for them) – HDR isn’t the only growth area. And two, utilities are falling over themselves to buy geothermal energy to meet RPS needs. Why? Because it’s baseload power friends and it’s the only renewable other than hydro-electric power that can claim to be baseload.

It is nice to see the world waking up a bit, solar and wind are great, but they can’t (and won’t) solve the problem on their own.

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