The group will develop 240-Mw geothermal power project
A consortium of Tata Power, Australian energy major Orion Energy and PT Supraco Indonesia has won the Sorik Marapi geothermal project in the Northern Sumatra region of Indonesia. The consortium will develop approximately 240 megawatts (Mw) of geothermal generation, a non-conventional form of an energy resource derived from the earth’s intense heat.
Tata Power and Origin Energy own 47.5 per cent each in the consortium. PT Supraco Indonesia, an oil and gas player with activities across the energy chain in Indonesia, holds the rest.
The project will be developed by PT Sorik Marapi Geothermal Power (SMGP), a special purpose vehicle (SPV) formed by the consortium. The consortium will undertake a detailed exploration programme over the next 18 months and the expected commercial operation date (COD) for the project is June 2015, according to a Tata Power statement.
In enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) technology, heat is extracted from granites located deep below the earth, by circulating water through them in an engineered artificial reservoir. Fluid from highly pressurised, natural geothermal systems is brought to the surface by wells that vary in depth from a few hundred metres to 2.5 kilometres. On the surface, this fluid is separated into two streams, steam and water. The steam is used in a turbine to generate electricity and the hot geothermal water is either injected back into the ground or drained away.
Indonesia is situated on the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’ and is expected to have approximately 27,000 Mw of potential conventional geothermal resources, one of the largest in the world. Indonesia has 1,196-Mw geothermal generation in operation. Sorik Marapi, located approximately 590 km south of the city of Medan, is spread over more than 50 kilometers of the Sumatra Fault Zone, the major geologic tectonic structure that runs the length of Sumatra and controls the location of most of the volcanic and geothermal activity on the island, according to the statement.
“The Sorik Marapi exploration is testament to our faith in the untapped potential of geothermal energy,” said Prasad R Menon, managing director, Tata Power. The company plans to achieve at least 25 per cent of its generation portfolio through non-polluting renewable sources by 2017.
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Two years ago, Tata Power had acquired 10 per cent in Geodynamics, one of the prominent geothermal energy specialists in Australia, for $37 million.
Origin Energy, the largest stakeholder in Geodynamics, is jointly developing a 50-Mw geothermal project in Australia, which will be ready by 2015.