Description of Location
Newberry Volcano is one of the largest and youngest volcanoes in the United States. It consists of over 400 individual volcanic vents, which, when combined, form a broad mounded landform referred to as a ‘shield volcano’. Newberry Volcano, centered about 30 miles southeast of Bend, Oregon, covers an area in excess of 600 square miles. Davenport Newberry leases over 40,000 acres (60 square miles) of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands. Davenport Newberry’s leases are located outside the Newberry National Volcanic Monument, a special area established by Congressional action based on the recommendation of a citizens’ committee that included representatives of the community, environmental groups, government, and the geothermal, timber and recreation industries. This Monument Committee designated areas located outside the Monument boundary for logging and geothermal use.


Project Description
Because project geologists anticipate temperatures above 400°F, the a geothermal plant at Newberry likely will use a flash steam system. The 120 MW project that will be built in phases until 2011. The first phase of 30 MW will come online in late 2009.

Steam generation: Hot water is flashed to saturated steam in a separator. The excess water is re-injected into the ground.
Power generation: The steam is piped to a condensing steam turbine generator. At the turbine outlet, low grade steam flows to a condenser where
it is cooled by a circulation system and wet cooling tower. Excess condensate from the cooling tower is re-injected into the ground through re-injection wells to continuously recharge the underground thermal resource.

Interconnection: The energy produced by the generator is stepped up to transmission voltage in transformers next to the plant. The electricity is then transported along a dedicated interconnection line to the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) interconnection point several miles west of the project. Once the power is in the BPA system, it flows to the California border.