AboitizPower eyes Bicol geothermal plant

Aboitiz Power Corporation subsidiary AP Renewables, Inc. is set to develop a 17-megawatt geothermal plant in the Bicol Region.

On Monday, APRI announced that the Engineering, Procurement and Construction contracts for the 17-megawatt binary geothermal power plant in Tiwi, Albay have been awarded to its long-time partners — Ormat Technologies Inc. and Desco Inc.

APRI and its partners plan to officially break ground for the project in the first quarter of 2023 with completion targeted by year-end.

The plant will utilize excess heat from spent brine at the Tiwi geothermal facility, the country's first geothermal power plant.

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.

Brine to fuel binary plant

In April this year, APRI also 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.

"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 chief operating officer Jeffrey Estrella said.

Cleanergy is AboitizPower's renewable energy 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.

AboitizPower eyes spending around P190 billion over the next decade to generate an additional 3,700 MW of RE. It will expand its capacities to 4,600 MW or three times the company's current renewables portfolio by 2030.

To date, the company has around 1,000 MW of disclosed RE projects and is on its way toward its targets.