Aboitiz awards EPC deals to Ormat, Desco
BY LENIE LECTURA – DECEMBER 6, 2022
from Business Mirror
AP Renewables Inc. (APRI), a subsidiary of Aboitiz Power Corp., has tapped Ormat Technologies Inc. and Desco Inc. as engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractors for its 17-megawatt (MW) binary geothermal power plant Tiwi, Albay.
Both companies are long-time partners of APRI, with Desco providing control and instrumentation materials plus staffing services for 11 years. Meanwhile, Ormat built and designed APRI’s binary facilities for the MakBan Geothermal Power Plant in Laguna.
“We are glad to move this project forward with partners we already know and trust. This collaboration will reinforce our commitment to providing much-needed Cleanergy to the grid,” APRI President and COO Jeffrey Estrella said.
Cleanergy is AboitizPower’s renewable energy (RE) solutions brand. Through Cleanergy facilities across the country, power derived from run-of-river, large hydro, solar, geothermal, and soon wind, are harnessed to provide reliable and reasonably-sourced energy to businesses and communities at a reasonably competitive price.
APRI and its partners aim to officially break ground for the project in the first quarter of 2023 and eyes completion by year-end. The plant will utilize excess heat from spent brine at the Tiwi geothermal facility, the country’s first geothermal power plant.
In April this year, APRI signed an agreement with its steam provider to supply brine to fuel the binary plant.
The project will be built from the ground up with an entirely new binary plant system, pipes, and transmission line.
Geothermal energy, a form of renewable energy, comes from the earth’s heat, produced by drilling production wells into the ground to tap high-temperature fluids from geothermal reservoirs. Residual heat from the hot brine side of the geothermal production process, otherwise unutilized before reinjecting back to the earth, is harvested to produce electricity through the binary geothermal power plant.
“Every step counts in our bid to grow our renewable energy portfolio,” AboitizPower President and CEO Manny Rubio said. “We are determined to reach our targets, and this project proves that we are ready to pursue every reasonable opportunity.”
