Webinar – Development, status, lessons from Cerro Prieto geothermal complex, 29 August 2025
Focus on Geothermal webinar - The Cerro Prieto Geothermal Complex: Development, Status, and Lessons Learned
Carlo Cariaga
25 Aug 2025
Join us on 29 August 2025 for a webinar on the Cerro Prieto Geothermal Complex in Mexico, its history, status, and lessons learned through the decades.
As part of the regular Focus on Geothermal Webinar series – a partnership of Enerchange and ThinkGeoEnergy, we are proud to host Ron DiPippo, Luis C.A. Gutiérrez-Negrín, and Andrew Chiasson for a webinar on “The Cerro Prieto Geothermal Complex: Development, Status, and Lessons Learned.”
Other webinar details are as follows:
Date: 29 August 2025
Time: 16:00 CEST / 10:00 ET
Registration: Click here to register
Speaker: Ron DiPippo, Luis C.A. Gutiérrez-Negrín, and Andrew Chiasson
Geothermal power generation started at the Cerro Prieto field in Mexico in 1973 – more than 50 years ago. Today, it remains one of the most significant geothermal fields in the world and has catapulted Mexico as one of the top 10 countries in terms of installed geothermal power generation. This webinar looks into the development history of Cerro Prieto, its current status, and some of the lessons the field has provided that the wider geothermal industry has benefited from in the areas of exploration, development, and resource management.
This webinar’s speakers also came out with a textbook earlier this year: “Geothermal Power Generation – Developments and Innovation” available in both hardback and eBook formats.
About the speakers
Ronald (Ron) DiPippo is Chancellor Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Ron has nearly 50 years’ experience in geothermal power and has served on international advisory boards in five countries where he participated in the development of 22 geothermal fields. His book Geothermal Power Plants: Principles, Applications, Case Studies and Environmental Impact (2016) is in its fourth edition. Ron has written over 120 technical articles and contributed to and/or edited nine handbooks dealing with geothermal power. He received the Ben Holt Geothermal Power Plant Award (2007) from the former Geothermal Resources Council and the Victor De Sola Award (2010) from LaGeo, El Salvador. He has taught engineering and geothermal courses at his university and as a visiting lecturer at Brown U., MIT, Cornell U., U. of Nevada Reno, and U. of Akureyri (Iceland). He holds ScB, ScM and PhD degrees from Brown University.
Andrew Chiasson is a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, University of Dayton, OH, where he teaches courses and conducts research in the areas of thermo-fluid sciences and renewable and clean energy. He also holds an appointment at the Hanley Sustainability Institute, with a focus toward Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Andrew has academic and professional engineering experience in a wide range of geothermal applications related to small-scale electrical power generation, direct use heating, borehole thermal energy storage, and geothermal heat pumps (GeoExchange), in addition to hydrogeological site evaluations and groundwater modeling. He has held appointments at the Geo-Heat Center, with consulting professional engineering firms in the United States and in Canada, and has been an associate editor for Geothermics.
Luis Carlos A. Gutiérrez-Negrín is a Mexican geologist retired in 2008 from the geothermal-electric division of the Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE). He is currently an independent consultant and executive director of the company Geocónsul, SA de CV, Secretary of the Mexican Innovation Center for Geothermal Energy (CEMIE-Geo, AC), member of the BoD of the National Institute for Electricity and Clean Energies (INEEL) and Editor in Chief of the journal Geothermal Energy. He has served as President of the Mexican Geothermal Association (AGM, in 2015-2017), member of the BoD (2006-2007) of the former Geothermal Resources Council and the International Geothermal Association (IGA, 2010-2016). He was the chair of the IGA’s Information Committee (2013-2016), and the editor of the former quarterly newsletter IGA News (2014-2018). He is the recipient of the Pathé Award 2017 and a Geothermal Special Achievement Award in 2003, granted by the AGM and the GRC, respectively.
