On May 27, 2009, President Obama announced that the Department of Energy (“DOE”) would deploy $350 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (“Recovery Act”) to be used to expand development, deployment, and use of geothermal energy throughout the United States. Four recent DOE Funding Opportunity Announcements (“FOAs”) have been issued in conjunction with this announcement. The recently announced Recovery Act funding will support projects in five areas: (1) geothermal demonstration projects, (2) enhanced geothermal systems (“EGS”) research and development, (3) innovative exploration techniques, (4) the creation of a national geothermal data system and a resource assessment and classification system, and (5) ground source heat pumps.
For more specific information, see this alert