Updated U.S. Geothermal Supply Curve

Conference · Mon Feb 01 00:00:00 EST 2010

OSTI ID:975396

Augustine, C; Young, K R; Anderson, A

This paper documents the approach used to update the U.S. geothermal supply curve. The analysis undertaken in this study estimates the supply of electricity generation potential from geothermal resources in the United States and the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), capital costs, and operating and maintenance costs associated with developing these geothermal resources. Supply curves weredeveloped for four categories of geothermal resources: identified hydrothermal (6.4 GWe), undiscovered hydrothermal (30.0 GWe), near-hydrothermal field enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) (7.0 GWe) and deep EGS (15,900 GWe). Two cases were considered: a base case and a target case. Supply curves were generated for each of the four geothermal resource categories for both cases. For both cases, hydrothermal resources dominate the lower cost range of the combined geothermal supply curve. The supply curves indicate that the reservoir performance improvements assumed in the target case could significantly lower EGS costs and greatly increase EGS deployment over the base case.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 975396
• Report Number(s): NREL/CP-6A2-47458; TRN: US201008%%218
• Resource Relation: Conference: Presented at 35th Stanford Geothermal Workshop, 1 February 2010, Stanford, California
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY
AVAILABILITY
CAPITALIZED COST
ELECTRICITY
GEOTHERMAL RESOURCES
GEOTHERMAL SYSTEMS
MAINTENANCE
PERFORMANCE
TARGETS
geothermal supply curves
geothermal resources
supply curve data
supply curve analysis
United States
DOE
Geothermal Technologies Program
electricity generation potential
levelized cost of electricity (LCOE)
LCOE