Commercial operations of Maibarara-2 to start in Dec.

MAIBARARA Geothermal, Inc. (MGI) targets to start the commercial operation of the 12-megawatt (MW) expansion of its geothermal power station in Sto. Tomas, Batangas by December 2017, the company said on Monday.

In a disclosure to the stock exchange, publicly listed PetroEnergy Resources Corp. said MGI’s expansion project — Maibarara-2 — is “currently being finished” to meet the target commercial run. PetroEnergy’s unit leads MGI.

“MGI together with National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) installed the revenue meter of Maibarara- 2 on Sept. 30,” PetroEnergy quoted Paul Elmer C. Morala, MGI power plant manager, as saying.

He also said the engineers of MGI and Manila Electric Co. completed on Oct. 24 the testing of Maibarara-2’s protection relays and circuit breakers.

MGI’s target commercial operation comes more than a year after it broke ground on the expansion in October 2016. The move will increase the plant’s capacity to 32 MW after the first 20 MW started operating in 2014.

The geothermal power plant has at least 8 MW more to expand in its facility, the company previously said, adding that it could increase the capacity further but subject to additional environmental permits.

When MGI launched the expansion, company officials set the target commercial operation in the fourth quarter of this year.

Maibarara-1, the first phase, has so far reached the 600- gigawatthour (GWh) generation mark during the billing period ending Oct. 25, 2017, MGI said.

“Apart from the scheduled annual maintenance shutdowns, we have managed to minimize forced outages in the facility leading to very high capacity and availability factors,” said MGI President Francisco G. Delfin, Jr.

MGI said the milestone was hit three years and eight months from the start of the facility’s commercial operation on Feb. 8, 2014.

PetroGreen Energy Corp. owns 65% of MGI, with Phinma Energy Corp. holding 25% and state- led PNOC Renewables Corp. owning the remaining 10%. PetroGreen is the renewable energy holding firm of publicly listed PetroEnergy. —