Ormat signs 20-year geothermal PPA with Nevada Power Company

Ormat Technologies (NYSE: ORA) today announced that one of its subsidiaries has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Nevada Power Company, for the sale of energy produced from its forthcoming Grass Valley Geothermal Power Plant to be built in Lander County in northern Nevada.

The PPA is subject to the approval of the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada. The site is projected to come on line in late 2010.

The new plant is expected to increase the total output supplied from Ormat to Sierra Pacific Resources by between 18 and 30 megawatts (MWs).

This agreement is the thirteenth PPA between Ormat and Sierra Pacific Resources, and the seventh executed since the enactment of Nevada's aggressive renewable portfolio standard (RPS) legislation in 2001, which requires 15 percent of all electricity generated in Nevada to be derived from new renewable energy sources by the end of 2012.

Geothermal energy from the company's Steamboat Complex "is sufficient to supply all the consumption of the residential customers of the city of Reno from a reliable most environmentally friendly resource situated in the city limits. The geothermal potential of Nevada and the responsible RPS program of Sierra Pacific will continue to contribute to our growth in our geothermal business," said Dita Bronicki, CEO of Ormat.

The Grass Valley project is to consist of an air-cooled binary or combined steam/binary power plant that re-injects 100 percent of all geothermal fluid produced, while consuming no water or chemicals.

Because geothermal power works continuously, the new plant will be able to provide base load power 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, unlike wind, solar or wave power sources.

Cleantech developments making news in the past 24 hours

• 'Mittelstand' drives Germany's cleantech boom
• Israel allows first solar power plants

View the last week of cleantech developments here | Subscribe to full feed