Calpine receives permits for two new geothermal plants at the Geysers

Reported yesterday, “The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors has approved land use permits that will help pave the way for Calpine Corporation (NYSE:CPN) to pursue building up to two new geothermal power plants of 49 MW each at The Geysers, where they would be the first new plants constructed since 1989.

“We appreciate the Board of Supervisors’ action and recognition of this important project,” said Gevan Reeves, Calpine’s Director, Strategic Origination. “We now look forward to moving ahead with development of these proposed new plants, which if built could provide more than 190 union construction jobs at a time when employment opportunities are needed in California.”

The Sonoma County Permit and Resource Management Department has previously determined that the projects would have no significant effect on the environment and identified the Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND) process as the appropriate permitting path for the two plants. Acknowledging the projects’ potential effects on the local job market, economy and community, the Board of Supervisors chose to exercise original jurisdiction over the applications and approved the permits based on the MND process.

Calpine is actively exploring long-term sales opportunities for the plants’ electric output through power purchase agreements (PPAs) with wholesale power providers. The construction schedule for these proposed projects is dependent upon the finalization of the permitting process with the

Northern Sonoma County Air Pollution Control District and Calpine’s ability to secure long-term PPAs.

Construction of the proposed projects is expected to require about 900,000 hours of labor. In addition, hundreds of millions of dollars in materials, supplies and services will be purchased during construction.

Once operational, the proposed projects could create as many as 19 new, full-time jobs.”

Source: Lake County Record-Bee