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Geothermal

Operation and Maintenance (O&M) Costs

Definition: Operations and maintenance (O&M) costs represent average annual fixed expenditures (and depend on rated capacity) required to operate and maintain a hydrothermal plant over its lifetime of 30 years (plant and reservoir), including:

  • Insurance, taxes, land lease payments, and other fixed costs
  • Present value and annualized large component overhaul or replacement costs over technical life (e.g., downhole pumps)
  • Scheduled and unscheduled maintenance of geothermal plant components and well field components over the technical lifetime of the plant and reservoir.

Base Year: GETEM is used to estimate FOM for each of the six representative plants. FOM for NF-EGS and EGS are equivalent.

Future Years: Future FOM cost reductions are based on results from the GeoVision Technology Improvement scenario (DOE, 2019) and are described in detail in Augustine, Ho, and Blair (2019).

Use the following table to view the components of operating expenditures.

References

The following references are specific to this page; for all references in this ATB, see References.

Augustine, Chad, Ho, Jonathan, & Blair, Nate. (2019). GeoVision Analysis Supporting Task Force Report: Electric Sector Potential to Penetration. (No. NREL/ TP-6A20-71833). National Renewable Energy Laboratory. https://doi.org/10.2172/1524768

DOE (2019). GeoVision: Harnessing the Heat Beneath Our Feet. (No. DOE/EE–1306). U.S. Department of Energy. https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/06/f63/GeoVision-full-report-opt.pdf

Developed with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.