Updated U.S. Geothermal Supply Curve

This paper documents the approach used to update the U.S. geothermal supply curve. The analysis undertaken in this study estimates the supply of electricity generation potential from geothermal resources in the United States and the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), capital costs, and operating and maintenance costs associated with developing these geothermal resources. Supply curves weredeveloped for four categories of geothermal resources: identified hydrothermal (6.4 GWe), undiscovered hydrothermal (30.0 GWe), near-hydrothermal field enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) (7.0 GWe) and deep EGS (15,900 GWe). Two cases were considered: a base case and a target case. Supply curves were generated for each of the four geothermal resource categories for both cases. For both cases, hydrothermal resources dominate the lower cost range of the combined geothermal supply curve. The supply curves indicate that the reservoir performance improvements assumed in the target case could significantly lower EGS costs and greatly increase EGS deployment over the base case.