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Solution

Geothermal power

Supporting more than 650 gigawatts of renewable energy projects worldwide, our team of global specialists understands the challenges you face and offers tailored risk management solutions at every stage of your project.

Comprehensive solutions

Access to global insurance markets, bespoke policy wording, and risk allocation strategies that suit your project partners and stakeholders.

Sophisticated risk modeling

Insightful data and proven proprietary modeling tools give you control, and help optimize your total cost of risk.

Deep expertise

Our advisors, engineers, brokers, claims advocates, and finance and commercial specialists will help you manage complexity and stay in control of your project.

Geothermal energy, in the form of steam or hot brine produced from reservoirs, has been used for electricity production since the middle of the 20th century.

Along with its low carbon credentials, geothermal energy is a reliable and dispatchable resource, which differentiates it from other natural resources such as solar and wind. As countries look to optimize their energy transition plans, these factors are driving renewed interest and potential investment in geothermal energy.

The drilling and construction phases of geothermal projects can present some financial and technical risks for project owners. The key risk focus areas include:

  • Natural perils. Inevitably, projects are located in fault zones prone to significant seismic activity. The natural perils vary between sites, but present challenges during construction. Projects also can increase seismic activity, such as earthquakes or landslides.
  • Drilling and geological hazards. Due to unknown conditions underground, during drilling and construction a site may be subject to well instability, risk of casing collapse, damage to the bottom hole assembly, blowout, and contamination of adjacent ground water resources. When equipment is damaged or unrecoverable, financial risks increase for project principals since drilling equipment rental agreements always include a “new-for-old” stipulation, regardless of the cause of the loss.
  • Maintenance and machinery breakdown. Electricity generation can be disrupted due to the breakdown of critical infrastructure, such as transformer or turbine failures. Maintenance-related issues, such as the corrosion of wellheads, casings, and pipelines, hydrogen-related embrittlement, and out-of-production wells, could also impact operations.
  • Liability risk. In certain countries, mining regulations specify all liabilities to a project operator, and these cannot be transferred to contractual partners. The scope of liabilities includes the drilling and construction risks noted above, damage to third-party property, bodily injury, and environmental risks, such as chemical fluids that may be spilled during drilling or lubrication oil spills during operation.

See our full guide on risk management solutions for geothermal energy projects.

Marsh provides you with a tailored approach and comprehensive solutions

We understand that every project is unique. Our team will support you through each project milestone to optimize your risk management strategy.

Design

Position your project for success

  • Enginerring support
  • Technology analysis
  • Loss modeling
  • Stakeholder management
  • Insurance budgeting

Construction

Get it built

  • Supply chain analysis
  • Health & safety strategy
  • Operational insurances
  • Hand-over to operations

Operation

Protect your assets and your business

  • Risk management framenwork
  • Captive strategy
  • Loss limit reviews
  • Specialist claims services
  • Decommissioning planning

Decommissioning

Close it out responsibly

  • Risk and liability review
  • Ongoing insurance

Our people

Our global renewable energy team includes insurance advisors, risk engineers, brokers, claims advocates, project finance specialists, and former industry risk managers. Contact one of our geothermal specialists for support.

Robert Hale

Robert Hale

Power & Renewable Energy Leader UK