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Sonoma Clean Power gives go-ahead for pilot geothermal projects

Sonoma Clean Power gives go-ahead for pilot geothermal projects Wine yards in Sonoma County, California (source: flickr/ Tim Wilson, creative commons)
Carlo Cariaga 13 Mar 2023

The board of Sonoma Clean Power has approved the agreements for all three geothermal pilot projects in the GeoZone in Sonoma, Mendocino counties, Calfironia.

Sonoma Clean Power (SCP) has approved all three cooperation agreements for proposed geothermal pilot projects in the Geothermal Opportunity Zone (GeoZone) spanning the Sonoma and Mendocino counties in California. This is a follow-up to a previous story we published on the pending decision.

Each pilot project will be facilitated by a different company – Cyrq Energy, Eavor Technologies Inc, and Chevron New Energies. Both Eavor and Chevron proposed closed-loop technologies while Cyrq proposed an integrated solar and geothermal facility. Each of the proposed agreements will call for the building of a demonstration power project with an initial 20-MW capacity that can be scaled up to 200 MW.

The projects of both Cyrq and Eavor were approved by the SCP board members unanimously. However, Chevron New Energies earned a split vote (7-4) amidst concerns that this initiative only serves to “greenwash” Chevron Corp.

Despite the pushback, the project of Chevron was still approved by the board on the strength of the company’s extensive drilling experience that will make the execution and economics of the pilot project more viable.

Source: North Bay Business Journal