AltaRock Energy firm buys Bottle Rock geothermal plant in the Geysers
Bottle Rock Power geothermal power plant at Cobb Mountain, California (source: Bottle Rock Power)
Alexander Richter
23 Nov 2015
Baseload Clean Energy Partners, a firm owned and operated by AltaRock Energy, has acquired the Bottle Rock geothermal power plant in the Geysers, California. It now plans upgrades among others with energy storage options.
In a release before the weekend, Baseload Clean Energy Partners (BCEP), a clean energy portfolio owned and operated by AltaRock Energy, announced the acquisition of Bottle Rock Power LLC. The Bottle Rock Power Plant was originally constructed as a 55-MW dry-steam geothermal plant situated on a 350-acre site in Lake County, California. BCEP purchased the remaining equity in the plant and associated leases for an undisclosed sum from Riverstone Holdings and U.S. Renewables Group. The company plans to upgrade the existing facilities to include energy storage in an effort to better manage supply and demand on the power grid.
Baseload Clean Energy Partners continues to build the leading portfolio of clean energy assets by leveraging the unique advantages of next generation enhanced geothermal energy systems (called EGS), a technology developed by AltaRock Energy. Bottle Rock Power is part of a broader complex of geothermal plants located within the Geysers, the largest geothermal field in the world. The acquisition contributes to BCEP’s overall goal of aggregating assets that benefit substantially from improvements in advanced energy technology.
“The next step in our strategy is the integration of energy storage within existing plants,” said Aaron Mandell, chief executive officer of BCEP. “Bottle Rock is an extremely valuable asset given the project’s access to the Northern California energy markets and future expansion potential of the geothermal resource. In the near term, we will focus on safely maintaining the existing plant and well field, but are actively working towards adding performance enhancements to enable flexible generation using energy storage.”
As the cost of utility-scale solar continues to drop, it becomes an increasingly larger portion of the overall energy supply. Grid operators are already adapting to accommodate new load profiles and adding energy storage will provide a way to both curtail excess solar during the day and tailor baseload generation to better reflect real-time demand. Geothermal is a unique clean energy resource because it is always available and combining it with storage will pave the way for renewables to become the largest source of electric power, worldwide. Ultimately, flexible energy resources will be the key to delivering a carbon-free energy grid.
Source: Press release via PR Newswire
