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Citation for /kW surface plant cost
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‎docs/Fervo_Project_Cape-4.md

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| PPA Price | Starting at 9.5 cents/kWh, escalating to 10 cents/kWh by project year 11 | Upper end of ranges given in https://atb.nrel.gov/electricity/2024/geothermal. Both PPAs 'firm for 10 years at less than $100/MWh' estimate given in a podcast. |
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| Well Drilling Cost Correlation & Adjustment Factor | Vertical large baseline correlation + adjustment factor = 0.84 to align with Fervo claimed drilling costs of <$4M/well | Akindipe, D. and Witter. E. 2025. "2025 Geothermal Drilling Cost Curves Update". https://pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/db/GeoConf/papers/SGW/2025/Akindipe.pdf?t=1740084555. Latimer, T. (2025, February 12). Catching up with enhanced geothermal (D. Roberts, Interviewer). https://www.volts.wtf/p/catching-up-with-enhanced-geothermal. |
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| Reservoir Stimulation Capital Cost Adjustment Factor | 2 | Estimated cost of ~$1.5M per well falls within typical range of $0.5–2M |
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| Capital Cost for Power Plant for Electricity Generation | $1900/kW | https://betterbuildingssolutioncenter.energy.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/Waste_Heat_to_Power_Fact_Sheet.pdf |
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| Discount Rate | 7.5% | Intended to be approximately equivalent to the 8% inflated equity interest rate used in the 400 MWe BICYCLE case study ([Fervo_Project_Cape-3](https://gtp.scientificwebservices.com/geophires/?geophires-example-id=Fervo_Project_Cape-3)) |
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| Inflated Bond Interest Rate (debt annual interest rate) | 5.6% | |
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| Fraction of Investment in Bonds (percent debt vs. equity) | 28.6% | It is estimated that Fervo currently has more equity financing than debt financing. This particular value is tuned in conjunction with discount rate and interest rate to create a WACC of 8.3% per https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fervo-energy-technology-day-2024-entering-geothermal-decade-matson-n4stc. Note that this source says that Fervo ultimately wants to target "15% sponsor equity, 15% bridge loan, and 70% construction to term loans", but this case study does not attempt to model that capital structure. |
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| Metric | Result Value | Reference Value | Reference Source |
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|-----------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
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| LCOE | $73/MWh | $80/MWh | https://www.nature.com/articles/s44359-024-00019-9 |
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| Plant capital costs | $4209/kW (based on maximum total electricity generation) | $4500/kW, $3000–$6000/kW | https://www.nature.com/articles/s44359-024-00019-9. Latimer, T. (2025, February 12). Catching up with enhanced geothermal (D. Roberts, Interviewer). https://www.volts.wtf/p/catching-up-with-enhanced-geothermal. |
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| Project capital costs | $4209/kW (based on maximum total electricity generation) | $4500/kW, $3000–$6000/kW | https://www.nature.com/articles/s44359-024-00019-9. Latimer, T. (2025, February 12). Catching up with enhanced geothermal (D. Roberts, Interviewer). https://www.volts.wtf/p/catching-up-with-enhanced-geothermal. |
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| Minimum Net Electricity Generation | 504.82 MW | 500 MW | https://fervoenergy.com/fervo-energy-announces-31-mw-power-purchase-agreement-with-shell-energy/. The 500 MW PPA is interpreted to mean that Cape Station's net electricity generation must never fall below 500 MWe. |
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| Well Drilling and Completion Cost Correlation | $3.96M/well | $<4M/well | Latimer, T. (2025, February 12). Catching up with enhanced geothermal (D. Roberts, Interviewer). https://www.volts.wtf/p/catching-up-with-enhanced-geothermal |
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| WACC | 8.3% | 8.3% | https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fervo-energy-technology-day-2024-entering-geothermal-decade-matson-n4stc |

‎tests/examples/Fervo_Project_Cape-4.txt

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Investment Tax Credit Rate, 0.3
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Property Tax Rate, 0
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Capital Cost for Power Plant for Electricity Generation, 1900, -- (peak production)
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Capital Cost for Power Plant for Electricity Generation, 1900, -- https://betterbuildingssolutioncenter.energy.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/Waste_Heat_to_Power_Fact_Sheet.pdf
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Exploration Capital Cost, 30, -- Estimate significantly higher exploration costs than default correlation in consideration of potential risks associated with second/third/fourth-of-a-kind EGS projects
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Well Drilling Cost Correlation, 3, -- VERTICAL_LARGE (2025 NREL Geothermal Drilling Cost Curve Update)

‎tests/examples/example_SAM-single-owner-PPA-2.txt

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Investment Tax Credit Rate, .3
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Surface Plant Capital Cost Adjustment Factor, 0.71, -- $1900/kW (peak production)
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Surface Plant Capital Cost Adjustment Factor, 0.71, -- $1900/kW: https://betterbuildingssolutioncenter.energy.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/Waste_Heat_to_Power_Fact_Sheet.pdf
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Exploration Capital Cost, 30
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Well Drilling and Completion Capital Cost, 3.84, -- Assume cost continues to decrease from $4.8M/well (https://houston.innovationmap.com/fervo-energy-drilling-utah-project-2667300142.html)
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Reservoir Stimulation Capital Cost, 234, -- 78 wells @ $3M/well

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