Ormat Industries Ltd. (TASE: ORMT) unit Ormat Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ORA) today announced that it has completed the 100-megawatt Ngatamariki geothermal power plant in New Zealand under the $142 million Supply and Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts signed with Mighty River Power Ltd. in June 2011. The plant is the largest singular binary power plant in the world, and was built in 24 months.
The Ormat Energy Converters are directly fed by a high temperature (193 degrees Celsius) geothermal fluid. Until now, on such resources, only steam turbines or Geothermal Combined Cycle plants were used. In this configuration, 100% of the exploited geothermal fluid is reinjected with zero water consumption and low emissions, minimizing the impact on the environment with no depletion of the underground reservoir.
Ormat CEO Yehudit Bronicki said, "We are pleased with the outperformance of the Ngatamariki power plant and we are confident that the effectiveness and reliability of Ormat's technology will continue to benefit our clients. During the last 25 years, Ormat has installed in New Zealand approximately 350 megawatts in 14 power plants, 60% of the new geothermal capacity. We look forward to expanding our activity with our partners in New Zealand and share our accumulated knowledge and experience in future geothermal development in that county and around the world."
"The plant near Taupo was completed within the forecast and had proven performance above design specifications in testing over the past three months," said Mighty River Power CEO Dr. Doug Heffernan. "The new station would add close to 700 GWh of annual electricity production, equivalent to the electricity use of about 80,000 households."
Ormat has built geothermal power plants with an aggregate capacity 1,600 megawatts of electricity, and its current generating capacity from plants in the US, Guatemala, and Kenya is 595 megawatts.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 3, 2013
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