Crossing the Barriers: An Analysis of Market Barriers to Geothermal Development and Potential Improvement Scenarios

Developers have identified many non-technical barriers to geothermal power development, including market barriers. Understanding the challenges to market deployment of geothermal power is important since obtaining power purchase agreements is often cited as one of the largest barriers to geothermal development. This paper discusses the impacts to deployment caused by market challenges, including market demand, price of electricity, policies, and incentives. In this analysis, we graded these market challenges and identified barriers that have the potential to prevent development of geothermal resources. Potential improvement scenarios were identified that could assist with overcoming these barriers and lead to the deployment of additional geothermal resources by 2030 and 2050. The potential market scenarios include (1) support for an increase in renewable deployment, (2) support for an increase in baseload deployment, (3) support for an increase in geothermal deployment, and (4) changes in market conditions. The results show potential for geothermal deployment can be increased most significantly - in excess of 20% - with state and/or federal policies supporting geothermal deployment, similar to those that have previously been implemented for solar and wind. Additional increases in geothermal deployment - in excess of 100% - were observed when improvements scenarios were modeled in combination with improvements for other non-technical barriers, including land access and permitting.