IRENA Project Navigator

Technical concept guidelines for geothermal power projects

Customer
International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)

IRENA is an intergovernmental organization that supports countries in their transition to a sustainable energy future and serves as the principal platform for international cooperation, centre of excellence, and repository of policy, technology, resource and financial knowledge on renewable energy.

Project
The IRENA project Navigator provides comprehensive and practical information, tools and guidance to assist in the development of bankable renewable energy projects. The focus of this project was to develop a set of guidelines for Geothermal power projects. Geothermal energy is a controllable base load energy source, which can be used in combination with other more intermittent sources, like solar and wind energy. The IRENA Project Navigator establishes a process consisting of nine phases to develop a geothermal project. In each project phase, relevant topics such as stakeholder involvement, risk management, regulatory frameworks, contracting approaches,  and others are described in detail. After each step, project developers needs to go through different decision checkpoints which will help them decide whether the project is ready to move to the next stage or not. This will help ensure that there is a business case for the project and support the financial close of the project.

Services
DNV has lead this project on creating the Project Navigator’s technical concept guidelines for geothermal projects, in a co-production with Reykjavik Geothermal. Authors from Iceland, Dubai and Netherlands (total 15) worked together with IRENA to produce a detailed report on how to develop a bankable geothermal project, following the process established by the IRENA Project Navigator.

Benefits
The Project Navigator’s Technical Concept Guidelines for Geothermal Power Projects enable project stakeholders to avoid pitfalls that can jeopardise project success by identifying critical regulatory, environmental, social, economic and technical elements in the project development process. In doing this, they help reduce the gap between project development activities and financial closing through practical deployment mechanisms, which is the main objective of IRENA’s Project Navigator.