By Jennifer Delony, Associate Editor, Renewable Energy World
Developers now have more public financing options available to support the exploration and test drilling phases of geothermal development, where high risk traditionally has limited funding opportunities.
The physical risks associated with early-stage geothermal development are constant, and barring some major technological advancements, there's little to suggest that those risks will change substantively in the near-term.
Analysts say exploration costs can account for up to 15 percent of the capital cost of a geothermal project, and the rate of success in the early stages can be between 50-60 percent. Despite the importance of preliminary surveys, exploration and test drilling in the project life cycle, public financing has been focused most often on later stages of development.
That trend, however, is changing.
