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Title: Geothermal Plant Capacity Factors

Abstract

The capacity factors recently provided by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) indicated this plant performance metric had declined for geothermal power plants since 2008. Though capacity factor is a term commonly used by geothermal stakeholders to express the ability of a plant to produce power, it is a term frequently misunderstood and in some instances incorrectly used. In this paper we discuss how this capacity factor is defined and utilized by the EIA, including discussion on the information that the EIA requests from operations in their 923 and 860 forms that are submitted both monthly and annually by geothermal operators. A discussion is also provided regarding the entities utilizing the information in the EIA reports, and how those entities can misinterpret the data being supplied by the operators. The intent of the paper is to inform the facility operators as the importance of the accuracy of the data that they provide, and the implications of not providing the correct information.

Authors:
; ; ; ;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
DOE - EE
OSTI Identifier:
1178377
Report Number(s):
INL/CON-14-33550
DOE Contract Number:  
DE-AC07-05ID14517
Resource Type:
Conference
Resource Relation:
Conference: Stanford Geothermal Workshop, Palo Alto, CA (United States), 26-28 Jan 2015
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY; capacity factor; EIA; geothermal power plants

Citation Formats

Mines, Greg, Nathwani, Jay, Richard, Christopher, Hanson, Hillary, and Wood, Rachel. Geothermal Plant Capacity Factors. United States: N. p., 2015. Web.
Mines, Greg, Nathwani, Jay, Richard, Christopher, Hanson, Hillary, & Wood, Rachel. Geothermal Plant Capacity Factors. United States.
Mines, Greg, Nathwani, Jay, Richard, Christopher, Hanson, Hillary, and Wood, Rachel. 2015. "Geothermal Plant Capacity Factors". United States. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1178377.
@article{osti_1178377,
title = {Geothermal Plant Capacity Factors},
author = {Mines, Greg and Nathwani, Jay and Richard, Christopher and Hanson, Hillary and Wood, Rachel},
abstractNote = {The capacity factors recently provided by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) indicated this plant performance metric had declined for geothermal power plants since 2008. Though capacity factor is a term commonly used by geothermal stakeholders to express the ability of a plant to produce power, it is a term frequently misunderstood and in some instances incorrectly used. In this paper we discuss how this capacity factor is defined and utilized by the EIA, including discussion on the information that the EIA requests from operations in their 923 and 860 forms that are submitted both monthly and annually by geothermal operators. A discussion is also provided regarding the entities utilizing the information in the EIA reports, and how those entities can misinterpret the data being supplied by the operators. The intent of the paper is to inform the facility operators as the importance of the accuracy of the data that they provide, and the implications of not providing the correct information.},
doi = {},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1178377}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2015},
month = {Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2015}
}

Conference:
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