Drawing on best practices from other geothermal support mechanisms, the proposed GeoFutures Facility has been designed to provide a variety of support mechanisms while complementing existing geothermal risk mitigation facilities that focus on East Africa. The GeoFutures concept builds on the strategies used and lessons learned in implementing other important geothermal risk facilities such as KfW’s Geothermal Risk Mitigation Fund (GRMF) and Geothermal Development Fund (GDF) for Latin America, and others undertaken by development banks and governments. The analyses of these facilities led the authors to conclude that for GeoFutures, the application process should be streamlined and user-friendly, the use of funds should be reasonably flexible, disbursements should be scheduled based on milestones, and an insurance mechanism that partially replenishes the facility should be incorporated.

GeoFutures comprises three flexible pillars that support the progression of projects from start to finish: a technical assistance pillar (100% grant funding) to help create an enabling environment for geothermal development and respond to specific technical needs of projects; a direct finance pillar (40% of eligible costs as either grants or convertible loans) to support focused exploration and well targeting at the prefeasibility stage (as grants), infrastructure development (as convertible loans to be repaid when projects are developed), and initial exploratory drilling (as grants); and a risk mitigation pillar that supports 60% of the costs associated with private-sector well productivity insurance.

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