Economic comparison of a well-head geothermal power plant and a traditional one

•Comparison between central power plants and wellhead power plants.•Important benefits obtained from the use of wellhead power plants.•Most important factor was how much earlier a wellhead power plant starts production.

The objective of this paper was to do an economic comparison between the traditional approach to geothermal projects and a well-head method, where smaller power plants were installed on each well to considerably reduce the time until energy production begins.The two methods were compared in a hypothetical steamfield, based on their NPV and net power production. The comparison showed that wellhead power plants benefit geothermal projects by increasing the power output and NPV by as much as 5% and 16% respectively, depending on how early they can start production and the rate of installation.