Provo, Utah-based Raser Technologies tells GER that it’s planning to start construction on its $80 million, 15-megawatt Lightning Dock project in New Mexico in the next couple of months.
The facility, which is slated to start operating in 2011, is backed by a 20-year power purchase agreement with the Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District (SRP), a utility district in neighboring Arizona.
In December Raser secured drilling capital for Lighting Dock and other projects from Evergreen Clean Energy, a newly-formed Utah-based investment fund.
The Evergreen deal provides Raser development capital for a 100-megawatt project pipeline, which includes the Lightning Dock.
EverGreen could invest up to $30 million in Lightning Dock. That amount includes drilling costs of about $5 million. In exchange the investment fund gets an equity interest of up to 50 percent in the project and any other projects it ends up financing. It’s also planning to apply for a government cash grant to fund part of the project, the Raser executive tells GER.
Also, earlier today, Raser posted a release announcing that it had scored a $32.9 million U.S. Treasury direct cash grant for its five megawatts Thermo Number 1, project located in Southern Utah’s Beaver County. The grant comes in lieu of the $25 million production tax credit Raser had secured back in June of 2008 from Merrill Lynch.
Merrill (now Bank of America Merrill Lynch), hammered by the financial crisis, walked away from that project. Raser says it’s in talks with other potential tax equity partners to invest between $15 – to – $20 million in Thermo Number 1. A Raser executive declined to name potential tax equity partners.
Thermo Number 1 generates 5 megawatts of power but plans are to double that capacity. The facility sells its output to as part of a 20-year PPA to the City of Anaheim, Calif.