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Calpine receives use permit for out of service Bear Canyon geothermal plant

Calpine receives use permit for out of service Bear Canyon geothermal plant Bear Canyon geothermal plant, The Geysers/ California (source: Calpine)
Alexander Richter 1 Oct 2018

Calpine Corp. has received a use permit extension for its 22 MW Bear Canyon geothermal power plant at the Geysers in California. Retired in early 2016, the plant could be brought back into service but there are no concrete plans on that so far.

As reported locally, Calpine Corp. has received a use permit extension for the Bear Canyon geothermal power plant. The plant has been out of service since January 2016. The 22 MW plant by Geysers Power Company (Calpine) was producing about 100,000 MWh of electricity, sufficient to serve 10,000 homes or about 20% of the whole electricity output of Lake County.

There are currently no plans in place to put the plant back into service, but the permit now given for the “entire productive life of the project” is good for the company to have. Under the permit, the company would be allowed to expand or change the plant’s operations.  Under the permit issued, Calpine can resume operation of the plant if the company sees fit, or in the case that “reclamation” was decided on, Calpine would demolish the structures already present on the property.

Source: Lake County, Record Bee