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Geothermal power gear up for expansion of capacity
Developers and operators of geothermal power plants are gearing up for expansion as the government plans to increase the use of geothermal to produce electricity for the grid
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evelopers and operators of geothermal power plants are gearing up for expansion as the government plans to increase the use of geothermal to produce electricity for the grid.
Star Energy, developer and operator of the 227 megawatts (MW) Wayang Windu geothermal power project in Pengalengan, West Java, plans to increase the project’s capacity by 130 MW within the next three years, the company’s managing director Bret Mattes said on the sideline of the World Geothermal Congress 2010 held in Nusa Dua, Bali, from April 26 to 30, 2010.
“We expect to bring in the additional 130 MW by early 2013,” he said.
Bret (whose first name is not Chie as inadvertently reported in a photo caption typo error yesterday, for which we apologize) added that the company planned to go public to raise the money for the expansion.
“We just issued bonds and raised US$350 million from that. Part of the money will be used for drilling activities. We plan to raise more money and to do that we probably will float the company to make it a public company on the stock exchange,” he said.
Bret did not mention what percentage of company shares would be sold to the public, since this was still being discussed.
In his address at the opening of the congress on Monday, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the government would speed up the development of geothermal power to take advantage of the country’s huge geothermal reserves.
With such large reserves, Indonesia could become the largest global user of geothermal energy, he said.
The government has offered a number of geothermal power projects to be built under the second 10,000 MW power plant accelerated program.
The second 10,000 MW program is expected to be started this year and planned to be completed in 2014.
State electricity company PLN recently said the total power capacity to be generated from the second 10,000 MW program would reach an estimated 10,677 MW.
Of the total, as much as 12 percent would be generated from hydro power plants; 15 percent from gas-fired combined-cycle power plants; up to 40 percent from geothermal power plants and 33 percent from coal-fired power plants.
A number of new power stations, all coal-fired, built under the first 10,000 MW program have now begun commercial operations.
Efforts to boost geothermal power generating capacity are also being demonstrated by US-based energy giant Chevron.
“We are actively pursuing some other tenders that the government of Indonesia has recently announced. So, we’ll continue working our way through these processes, under the term and conditions that the government has laid out. We hope to be successful in capturing opportunities through the tender process to develop some additional projects in Indonesia,” said Stephen W. Green, president of the Chevron Indonesia Company and Managing Director of the Chevron IndoAsia Business Unit Chevron is the world’s largest producer of geothermal power with a total capacity of 1,273 MW. In Indonesia, the company operates two geothermal projects in West Java, Salak and Darajat, with a total generating capacity of 636 MW.
Green would not specify which projects Chevron was looking at. He said Chevron was “interested in developing large scale commercial geothermal projects that meet its investment requirements”.
State oil and gas firm PT Pertamina is also contributing to geothermal expansion by developing power stations both through its subsidiary PT Geothermal Energy (PGE) and through joint cooperation contracts with other companies.
Pertamina’s current total geothermal generating capacity is 1,194 MW and the firm plans to increase its total capacity to 3,132 MW by 2014.
“We have secured some loans and we will build more power plant that we have agreed with state power firm PT PLN,” PGE’s utilization manager Eko Agung Bramantyo said.
Indonesia’s geothermal energy resources are estimated to represent about 28,000 MW of power, but the country has so far only utilized 1,196 MW. The government plans to construct 3,977 MW of geothermal power capacity under the second 10,000 MW power program.
