Aboitiz geothermal unit adds 17MW to Luzon
The Tiwi Binary Power Plant is a facility designed to extract the recoverable heat from the geothermal brine that is processed in a closed-loop system
TIWI, Albay — About 17 megawatts of additional baseload renewable energy is expected to augment the power supply in the Luzon grid once the new geothermal plant that a unit of Aboitiz Power Corporation is undertaking becomes operational.
AboitizPower, through its subsidiary AP Renewables Inc., held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Tiwi Binary Geothermal Power Plant Project on Tuesday afternoon to signal the start of its construction.
The binary plant — which should be complete by the end of the year — is within the 1.5-hectare of land where the Tiwi Geothermal Power Plant, the first and oldest geothermal power plant in the country, is located.
The project will be built from the ground up with an entirely new binary plant system, pipes, and transmission line.
“The Tiwi Binary Power Plant is a facility designed to extract the recoverable heat from the geothermal brine that is processed in a closed-loop system where no harmful gas or liquid is being emitted nor any waste products are discharged to the atmosphere,” APRI president and COO Jeffrey Estrella said.
He added the new project is part of AboitizPower’s ambition to expand the attributable capacity of its renewable energy solutions brand called Cleanergy by the end of the decade.
Estrella, along with AP COO for Renewable Energy Generation Alexander Coo, and Department of Energy Assistant Secretary Mario Marasigan, led the groundbreaking ceremony.
Geothermal energy, a form of renewable energy, comes from the earth’s heat and is 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.
The concept of recovering heat from the geothermal brine and converting it into electricity is a novel solution that improves its overall thermal efficiency.
Likewise, the binary plant has no emission to the environment as its binary fluid operates in a closed-loop system.
AboitizPower is the largest owner and operator of renewable energy in the country based on installed capacity.
It plans to spend P190 billion within this decade for an additional 3,700 MW of clean energy capacities.
The company aims to build an additional 3,700 MW of RE, growing its capacities to 4,600 MW or three times the company’s current renewables portfolio by 2030.
To date, it has around 1,000 MW of disclosed RE projects and is on its way toward achieving its targets.