A PHILIPPINE representative from GreenFire Energy Inc. said the Mt. Apo Geothermal Plant located in Kidapawan, North Cotabato is still up and running at full capacity.
During the 16th Media Power Seminar on July 8 held in Iloilo City, representative Alberto Dalusung III said the power plant operates at around 100 megawatts.
“The Mt. Apo Geothermal Plant, from what I recall, has been operating for more than 30 years. All geothermal, which a lot of them are old, are 90% capacity factor,” Dalusung said.
He also stressed that they are looking for a dormant volcano rather than an active one for the heat to remain under the ground.
“It’s not as old as the Mak-Ban, but I’m looking at the idle wells in Mt. Apo, probably not as much, but all those idle wells can be investigated for other technologies, and we are not limited to it. I guess the good news here is that all of our idle wells in the Philippines could be improved,” he added.
Idle and unproductive wells, according to the Dalusung, were one of its challenges, as it is unable to produce energy at the levels it once produced, especially in mature reservoirs.
“These wells are non-performing assets that either require additional investment (i.e., redrilling, sidetracking or drilling new wells) or must be written off for abandonment,” he said in its presentation.
Dalusung emphasized that geothermal energy has been the most reliable source in the Philippines.
GreenFire Energy Inc. provides geothermal solutions that assure the long-term availability of resilient, sustainable, and scalable geothermal energy for a wide range of applications.
Photo by Bobby Timonera
