Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley to Visit Surprise Valley Electrification Corp. Project Site

August 23, 2011

DOE’s Geothermal Technologies Program, with support from DOE’s national laboratories, conducts research, development and demonstration projects throughout the United States on low-temperature geothermal resources.

Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon will be stopping by our ARRA Low-Temperature project, Surprise Valley Electrification Corp., this Sunday, August 28, 2011, for a brief site visit.

About Surprise Valley Electrification Corp.

Surprise Valley Electric Cooperative (SVEC) was awarded a DOE Geothermal Technologies Program Recovery Act award to develop a geothermal resource in Paisley, Oregon for the benefit of its rural electric cooperative members. DOE is contributing $2M towards their $9.4M total project budget, which includes geologic characterization of the resource, drilling, flow testing, power plant selection, power plant installation, transmission upgrade, power integration into the SVEC grid, and the enabling of a secondary use of the geothermal resource for aquaculture on the operating ranch. As of August 2011, SVEC has made substantial progress on drilling of their production and injection wells at the project site, and preliminary indications show promising results in terms of temperature on their production well. Following completion and flow testing of the wells, SVEC plans to size and design power plant appropriate for the geothermal resource. This project is one of the first of its kind in the contiguous United States, and could serve as a model for other rural electric cooperatives.

Geothermal Technologies Program Surprise Valley Electrification Corp. project list