Nevada's Beowawe Geothermal Plant Begins Generating Clean Energy

April 20, 2011

U.S. Energy Secretary Highlights Completion of First Recovery Act-Funded Geothermal Plant

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu issued the following statement today on the unveiling of the Beowawe Geothermal Plant in Eastern Nevada. This is the first geothermal project funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to start generating power.

"Nevada is helping lead the way in securing America's clean energy future. This is the first Recovery Act-funded geothermal project to start generating power in the country and shows the great environmental and economic potential of this clean, reliable, domestic energy resource," said Secretary Chu. "Projects like this one are playing an important role in helping to meet President Obama's goal of doubling the country's clean energy resources over the next 25 years."

The new low-temperature, binary cycle plant uses waste heat from the geothermal brine of an existing geothermal plant at the facility. The new plant will add approximately 2 megawatts of clean renewable energy capacity to the existing plant's nameplate capacity of approximately 17.7 megawatts

Developed by Terra-Gen Power and TAS Energy, the project was funded in part by a $2 million Recovery Act grant from DOE's Geothermal Technologies Program. The Recovery Act funding leveraged an additional $4 million in private sector investments to support the project, which employed approximately 20 people to construct last year.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Geothermal Technologies Program partners with industry, academia and national laboratories to develop and validate cost-competitive technologies and tools that accelerate growth of the U.S. geothermal market and to establish the technical and economic feasibility of enhanced geothermal systems.

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