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grid, reducing the efficiency and cost effectiveness of the U.S. electric grid. Levelized cost of electricity calculations that do not account for the benefits of geothermal power in these areas are a barrier to geothermal deployment. Asset Flexibility: Geothermal power plants have traditionally operated for baseload power. Advancements in power plant and control technology, however, now allow geothermal plants to operate in grid-support and load-following modes to provide spinning reserve, non-spinning reserve, regulation reserve, and replacement or supplemental reserve. The future electricity grid is projected to have greater penetration of variable generation energy resources such as wind and solar and will increasingly require power-generation technologies that can operate flexibly. As indicated in Section 2.3.3.2, two key examples of geothermal power plants that have provided this flexibility are The Geysers in California and Puna Geothermal Venture in Hawaii (Text Box 2-4). For most geothermal power plants, the barrier to flexible operation is economic rather than technical, although technical barriers compound and complicate the issue.48 A 2014 industry survey of geothermal power developers confirms that the primary reason most geothermal power plants do not operate as flexible sources of electricity is because economic considerations are insufficient to ensure an acceptable return on investment. Although it is physically possible for geothermal power plants to operate flexibly, doing so would not be cost effective under traditional PPA contract terms. PPAs that incentivize geothermal plants to operate flexibly have not historically been offered (Matek 2015b). PPA terms would need to be modified in order for geothermal power plants to be compensated for operating as a reserve and flexible facility instead of as baseload power. Two innovative principles that could be incorporated into future geothermal power contracts to encourage flexible operation are: 1) contracts that include payment schedules defining the price of power in response to a dispatch signal transmitted by the independent system operator or other load-serving entity; and 2) increased ability of geothermal plants for frequency regulation (i.e., ramping generation assets up or down over a period of a few minutes) through power pricing that includes payments specifically for frequency-regulation services (Matek 2015b, Edmunds and Sotorrio 2015). Edmunds and Sotorrio (2015) studied ancillary service revenue potential for geothermal generators in California and found that prices for geothermal energy sales from existing PPAs are significantly higher than average ancillary service prices in California. As such, there is little incentive for developers to seek contracts that compensate for ancillary services in lieu of energy sales. As more variable-generation capacity comes online and the value of flexible generation increases, the incentive to develop such contracts may also increase. Federal and State Incentives: Congress has enacted a range of federal tax and subsidy policies—including the Investment Tax Credit and the Production Tax Credit— to support the development of both renewable and fossil fuel energy. However, the structure and duration of federal incentives compared to long geothermal development timelines make it difficult for developers to rely on such incentives (Young et al. 2019). For example, the Production Tax Credit has rarely been guaranteed to be in effect for longer than five years, and geothermal exploration and development timelines are typically longer than this.49 48 When a geothermal power plant ramps up or down to provide flexibility, either the production must be variably throttled and cycled at the wells, or continuous production from wells must variably bypass the plant and be diverted to injection or to a cascaded energy-use scheme. Geothermal well cycling can damage wells and reduce operational lifespan. Flexibility introduced either at the wellhead or through diversion at the power plant can introduce significant operational complexity and cost. 49 Geothermal systems qualify for the Investment Tax Credit, which was first passed in 2005. The Investment Tax Credit policy has been extended and modified several times. As of the 2016 changes in the Consolidated Appropriations Act (passed in December 2015), geothermal electricity systems are eligible for a 10% credit with no expiration date (as of the time of this report), based on the date of the start of service. 42 Chapter 2 | What is Geothermal Energy? Sunset over the Vulcan and Hoch geothermal power plants at the Salton Sea geothermal field in California. Photo credit: Alexander Schriener, Jr. Chapter 2PDF Image | What is Geothermal Energy
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