Business opportunities at Salton Sea examined - especially for geothermal energy
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The extent of the geothermal resource on the
Salton Sea along with estimated generation of 2330 MWe.
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Several officials representing Riverside and Imperial counties, as well as other agencies, met with a group of business people involved in geothermal energy, solar energy, real estate and agriculture on Thursday at a forum focused on boosting private sector involvement in projects around the Salton Sea.
David Nahai, a consultant and former head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said he hopes to see the development of an “energy zone” around the Salton Sea.
“That means having policies in Sacramento that actually drive and create the marketplace for this power to be sold,” he added.
A study recently prepared for the Imperial Irrigation District projected that renewable energy and a variety of other projects, such as lithium extraction, could generate more than $4 billion for the Salton Sea over the next 30 years.
Small geothermal plants near the Salton Sea already tap hot water from deep underground in the seismically active zone, and use the steam to generate more than 300 megawatts of power. But to transport more energy from new plants, new transmission lines would be needed.
In order to develop geothermal energy, it will be important to line up customers to buy the power ahead of time, said Vincent Signorotti, vice president of resource and real estate assets for the company EnergySource, developers of the John L. Featherstone geothermal plant.
“If we can develop a market for the resource, for the energy that’s produced, I think that as an industry, we are very anxious to build more plants,” Signorotti said.
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