The Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) uses the Geothermal Electricity Technology Evaluation Model (GETEM) to understand the performance and cost of energy technologies GTO seeks to improve. The model helps GTO determine which proposed research, development, and deployment (RD&D) programs and projects might offer the most efficient improvement when based on taxpayer funding.
GETEM is an Excel-based tool for estimating the levelized cost of energy for definable geothermal scenarios. It is a detailed model of the estimated performance and costs of currently available U.S. geothermal power systems. It can be used to analyze and evaluate the state of existing technologies, and estimate the cost of certain technologies 5–20 years in the future, given the direction of potential RD&D projects.
Electrical power generation is the sole geothermal use considered by GETEM. The model does not provide assessment capabilities for geothermal heating and cooling technologies. It can evaluate a hydrothermal or an enhanced geothermal system resource type, and then either a flash-steam or air-cooled binary power plant based on specific resource parameters.
The latest version of the GETEM tool is now fully implemented into the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) System Advisor Model (SAM). The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) SAM is a free techno-economic software model that facilitates decision making for the renewable energy industry. For assistance using the tool, refer to NREL’s SAM help tool.
This model and its documentation were prepared as required work under a subcontract from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory, to Princeton Energy Resources International, Rockville, Maryland. The estimates and correlations for the performance and costs of geothermal electric power systems are intended for use in analysis of government policies, and should not be construed or represented as "official DOE estimates of performance and/or cost of any real geothermal power system or any of its components."
Further, neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its usefulness would not infringe privately owned rights.