The Salton Sea is an inland saline lake in southern California. It gets seriously hot in the summer. How hot? Well, one area is called Hell’s Kitchen. That’s where Controlled Thermal Resources is building a highly innovative geothermal energy plant and a facility to extract lithium from the brine. When completed, it will produce 40 MW of baseload renewable energy and lithium for use in batteries.
Geothermal is one of the few sources of renewable energy that produces electricity 24 / 7. Demand for lithium is soaring. This make economic sense. The big news is the Imperial Irrigation District has agreed to purchase the power for 25 years, once the geothermal plant is done. This guarantees steady income to developer Controlled Thermal Resources. In addition, it will create hundreds of jobs in an area that badly needs them.
This is a win-win for everyone.
Controlled Thermal Resources and Imperial Irrigation District are pleased to announce the successful completion of a power purchase agreement that indicates a promising new decade for baseload renewable energy in California and the United States.
The geothermal power facility is expected to be operational in 2023 and will coincide with the development of CTR’s integrated direct lithium extraction and conversion facility Hell’s Kitchen LithiumCo.