Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Tuesday announced a partial guarantee for a $98.5 million loan to the 49.5-megawatts (MW) Blue Mountain geothermal project in Humboldt County in northwestern Nevada.
The loan guarantee is being issued to John Hancock Financial Services to support a loan to a subsidiary of the Nevada Geothermal Power Company (NGP.V).
The Blue Mountain project consists of a geothermal well field and fluid collection and injection systems that enable energy to be extracted from rock and fluid below the Earth’s surface, and a power plant that converts geothermal energy into electricity. The energy produced by the power plant is free of greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollutants.
The project has a 20-year power purchase agreement to sell electricity and renewable energy credits to the Nevada Power Company (NYSE: NVE).
The loan guarantee was issued under the Financial Institution Partnership Program (FIPP), a Department of Energy program supported by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. FIPP is designed to expedite the loan guarantee process for renewable energy generation projects that use commercial technologies and to expand credit capacity for financing of U.S. renewable energy projects.
In a FIPP financing, DOE provides a partial guarantee for up to 80% of a loan provided to a renewable energy project by qualified financial institutions.
Including today’s announcement, the Department of Energy has issued loan guarantees or offered conditional commitments for loan guarantees to support 14 clean energy projects.
"Our support for the Blue Mountain project is part of the
Administration’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions while creating clean energy jobs," said Secretary Chu.
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