The early stage of geothermal project development is the most critical phase, with high risks and high investment. Experts from Geothermal Developers and will speak about their experience and discuss risk management and financing of geothermal projects. 

Over the past years, geothermal development financing has seen various models being developed. Within this session some of these models  re introduced and the role of funding programs and incentives discussed by Investors, Donors and Developers.

Project developers are faced with significant challenges obtaining affordable capital, because investors (debt or equity) are uncomfortable with the risk and the price for external capital is too high for the project to be viable. With larger scaled projects, based on phased PPAs or modular plant developments, i.e. using well head generators, solutions will be introduced and discussed with power plant engineers, developers, operators and investors.

Electricity generation has been the most prominent target of geothermal project development, however further opportunities for geothermal energy utilisation exist to make projects more profitable. To use geothermal heat directly is an obvious choice, but with the summer periods a gap exists in the business case. Another – upcoming topic is the extraction of minerals from geothermal brines. The session will discuss the multiple usage of geothermal energy.

With the various features of geothermal energy and the possibilities to finance introduced during the day, this discussion round will draw conclusions on financing geothermal development and the instruments to accelerate project development and technological advancements.