On July 27, 1979, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) filed an Application for Certification (AFC) for the 55-MW Bottle Rock Geothermal Project. As a geothermal AFC, following a Notice of Intent, Bottle Rock went through a nine-month licensing proceeding, including a separate Environmental Impact Report (EIR). The DWR Bottle Rock Geothermal Project received unanimous California Energy Commission (CEC) certification on November 5, 1980. Bottle Rock was constructed and began operating in February 1985. Steam supply, however, became a critical problem for Bottle Rock. The steam field for Bottle Rock could only produce about 15 MW instead of the projected 55-MW capacity.
In November 1990, DWR suspended operation of the Bottle Rock project and the plant was eventually placed into cold stand-by state. In April 1993, the CEC approved an amendment modifying monitoring and reporting requirements in consideration of the plant’s shutdown status. U.S. Renewables Group purchased the power plant in October 2005 with the intention of repowering the project. The CEC approved an amendment in December of 2006 to restart the facility with modifications to the design and update the Compliance Plan. As well as reviewing Air Quality, Aspen provided the CEC Compliance Project Manager responsible for overseeing all aspects of the major amendment to restart operations of the geothermal project.
