Recently, Open Mountain Energy LLC (OME), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kaishan Group Co., Ltd. that develops, owns, and operates geothermal energy projects in the United States, signed power purchase agreements with Marin Clean Energy (MCE) and Peninsula Clean Energy (PCE), respectively.
The power purchase agreement between OME and MCE has a capacity of 7MW (net) and a duration of 21 years; The electricity will be provided by the Bottom Rock project (located in Lake County, California) acquired by OME in September 2022. The power station is expected to be put into commercial operation by June 2024 at the latest.
The power purchase agreement between OME and PCE has a capacity of 6MW (net) and a duration of 20 years; Electricity is provided by OME’s Whitegrass No.2 (located in Lyon County, Nevada). The power station is expected to be put into commercial operation by the end of December 2024. The Wabuska Phase I power plant (Whitegrass No.1, 3MW, in operation) is also operated by OME, and its electricity is sold to Southern California Public Power Authority (SCPPA) through a similar power purchase agreement.
MCE is an electricity joint venture located in California. PCE is an investment grade community management, non-profit electricity joint venture located in California, providing over 3600GWh of electricity to 810000 users. Both of OME’s PPAs responded to the solicitation letter for the acquisition of base load clean energy, and based on this, they negotiated and signed a power purchase agreement with the power company. “Base load clean energy” requires California public utilities to purchase zero emission clean energy with an availability factor of over 80% and unaffected by weather. Geothermal energy is one of the few clean energy categories that meets its requirements.
Kaishan Group Co., Ltd. is an international independent geothermal developer and module power plant equipment manufacturer. Its geothermal power plants that have been put into operation and are under development are all over Indonesia, the United States, Türkiye, Hungary and Kenya. Among them, the Wabuska Phase I power plant (Whitegrass No.1) in the United States has been in operation for more than 4 years; The 12.5MW Star Peak Phase I power plant will be put into commercial operation in August; The Fish Lake project has also started drilling in August. This time, we have signed sales (purchase) agreements with MCE and PCE respectively. OME has signed long-term purchase agreements for 45MW with different power companies in California.
Currently, the OME team is receiving more PPAs to match the resource levels of the four geothermal development blocks currently under construction. In addition, the team is also receiving more geothermal projects.
