COBB, Calif. – Bottle Rock Power LLC has been acquired by a Seattle-based company that previously had undertaken a geothermal drilling project near Middletown.
Baseload Clean Energy Partners, a clean energy portfolio owned and operated by AltaRock Energy, announced its acquisition of Bottle Rock Power LLC.
The three-story Bottle Rock Power Plant, situated on 350 acres, originally was constructed by the California Department of Water Resources as a 55-megawatt dry-steam geothermal plant.
The plant first opened in 1985, closed in 1990 and reopened in 2007, as Lake County News has reported.
The facility is part of a complex of geothermal plants located within The Geysers, the largest geothermal field in the world.
Baseload Clean Energy Partners reported that it purchased the remaining equity in the plant and associated leases for an undisclosed sum from Riverstone Holdings and U.S. Renewables Group.
The company said it plans to upgrade the existing facilities to include energy storage in an effort to better manage supply and demand on the power grid.
"The next step in our strategy is the integration of energy storage within existing plants," said Aaron Mandell, chief executive officer of Baseload Clean Energy Partners. "Bottle Rock is an extremely valuable asset given the project's access to the Northern California energy markets and future expansion potential of the geothermal resource. In the near term, we will focus on safely maintaining the existing plant and well field, but are actively working towards adding performance enhancements to enable flexible generation using energy storage."
AltaRock Energy Inc., founded in 2007, is a leading developer and operator of advanced geothermal power projects using geothermal stimulations, known as enhanced geothermal systems.
That technology involves drilling deep into the earth's surface to create bedrock fractures. Water is then injected into the fractures in order to get steam for use in geothermal power production.
In 2009, AltaRock began an engineered geothermal systems demonstration drilling project above Middletown on federal land leased from the Bureau of Land Management.
The goal of the project – funded in part by millions of dollars in federal Department of Energy and venture capital funds – was to test out the engineered geothermal systems technology.
However, the project – which had raised serious concerns among area residents over safety and increased seismicity – was suspended after the company said it encountered “physical difficulties” due to geologic anomalies.
At that time, AltaRock had indicated that it was planning to continue developing its engineered geothermal systems technology in the Lake County area.
Since it reopened, the Bottle Rock Power plant has been a source of concern for Cobb residents, who have complained about traffic, noise, grading, environmental management and compliance with its original use permit.
In 2011 the Friends of Cobb Mountain sued the county over certification of the environmental impact report for plant’s steamfield expansion project.
The suit was dropped in spring 2012 after the county and the group reached a settlement that provided, among other things, for reimbursement for residents in the case they needed to evacuate due to plant operation, funds for testing groundwater and wells in the project vicinity, the hiring of a geothermal coordinator for the county and the reactivation of the Lake County Geothermal Advisory Committee.
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Bottle Rock Power sold to energy portfolio owned by AltaRock Energy
- Elizabeth Larson
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