The US Department of Energy (DoE) has offered a USD 102 million conditional commitment for a loan guarantee to US Geothermal, for the purpose of building a 22 MW geothermal power plant in southeast Oregon.

The new project will be using an improved technology for extracting energy from rock and fluids in the earth's crust with more efficiency. The supercritical binary geothermal cycle is touted to be more efficient than traditional binary technology. The supercritical cycle allows developers to use lower-temperature geothermal resources to generate power. More energy will now be available from existing wells, but developers will also be able to tap into geothermal areas previously discarded due to lower temperatures.

US Geothermal estimates the creation of about 150 jobs during the construction period, and ten permanent jobs once the power plant becomes operational.

[source: US DoE, image: US Geothermal]