by Jbs110909 c3 — November 11, 2009—The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced on October 29 that it will award up to $338 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds for the exploration and development of new geothermal fields and for research into advanced geothermal technologies.
The grants will support 123 projects in 39 states, with recipients including private industry, academic institutions, tribal entities, local governments and DOE national laboratories, and will be matched with an additional $353 million in private and non-federal cost-share funds.
Of the 123 projects, 24 will employ innovative exploration and drilling technologies and three will involve geothermal data development, collection, and maintenance to build a national geothermal resource database.
In addition, 37 projects will support the deployment of ground source heat pumps across the country, including creative financing approaches for the installations. The remaining grants will go toward producing power and heat from new geothermal resources, including deep hot rock and low-temperature resources.
For more information, see DOE’s Geothermal Technologies Program Web site.
