Here is a local geothermal example. PAX (Panax) has just released a cost analysis for their 59 MW (net), 67 MW (gross) Penola project. They plan to drill 10 wells and have assumed a gross output from each well of 6.7 MW. The pahses and net power output are as follows:
o Commercial demonstration - 6.7 MW gross o Phase 1 - 26.8 MW gross (cumulative) o Phase 2 - 67 MW gross (cumulative)
Their estimated cost for up to completion of phase 2 is $342 million. That equates to $5.8 million per MW net, or $5.1 million gross.
We still don't know whether the 50MW figure for CNM commercial demonstration is gross, net, or even maximum or average power output, so all these figures are very rubbery, but CNM's figures equate to about $6 million per MW.
Panax is dealing with off the shelf products for heat exchangers and other power generation equipment plus they are dealing with known geothermal hot sedimentary aquifer reserves so they can probably assume a lot more accuracy with their figures. CNM is dealing with some unknowns as there is still no CETO III deployed yet. That maybe explains why we haven't seen any detailed figures. I imagine the figures are possibly also commercial in confidence.
In any case, to me it says they are at least in the ball park with geothermal. Plus on top of that we have the fact that renewables are tightly coupled with geography - you can't put a wave farm where there are geothermal resources and vice versa.
CNM Price at posting:
21.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
