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Geothermal Exchange Organization :: Newsletter

Colorado Geo Utility

A Colorado firm, PanTerra Energy LLC, is the first private company to be registered with the state Public Utilities Commission as a geothermal utility. It can cost $millions to install geothermal exchange systems in commercial office buildings, which has been an industry barrier for years. Thus the Englewood startup, which opened in 2011, is going to follow the third-party ownership business model common in the solar-power industry. PanTerra plans to act as a third party to finance, build, own and maintain geothermal exchange systems for commercial clients.

PanTerra is one of a handful of companies nationwide starting to offer customers geothermal systems via monthly agreements, said John Kelly, the Fort Collins-based operations manager for the Geothermal Exchange Organization (GEO), the industry’s nonprofit association based in Washington, DC.

“It’s a good business model, but it’s relatively new,” Kelly said. “There are big upfront costs in geother-mal heating and cooling. If you can get around that, there are going to be a lot of customers interested in this.”

Source: Geothermal Exchange Organization

Date: July 13, 2012