This bill creates the "Milestone-Based Geothermal Demonstration Program" at the Department of Energy. The Secretary must set up the program within 180 days. The program will award "innovative financing" (milestone-based funding) to geothermal projects in low-permeability and impermeable reservoirs. It prioritizes projects in regions with little or no geothermal electricity generation (including on or near Indian land), projects that collect and share data about new geothermal resources and technologies, projects that will achieve or enable at least 30 megawatts of electricity capacity, and projects likely to attract private investment. The Secretary must request proposals, award financing to at least three different proposals in at least three different States from at least three different project sponsors, keep sufficient staff to run the program, and carry out projects under the milestone-based demonstration authority in the Energy Act of 2020. The bill also authorizes the appropriation of "such sums as are necessary" to carry out the specified program provisions.
The bill says: "There are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary such sums as are necessary to carry out subsections (d) and (e)." No publicly available information on estimated costs or specific appropriation amounts is provided in the text.
The bill's stated purposes are: to accelerate commercialization of next-generation geothermal technologies in diverse geologies and regions; to overcome high upfront capital costs for geothermal exploration and drilling; to generate public data to de-risk future geothermal projects in new geologies and regions; and to catalyze geothermal demonstration projects and innovation through milestone-based financing to de-risk future geothermal projects.
No publicly available information.