2006-09-21 - The Philippines and Indonesia are two of the largest producers of geothermal energy in the world. Both countries have selected ABB distributed control systems to ensure that new geothermal power plants operate efficiently and economically.
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Strong tectonic activity and good access to thermal hot springs in the Philippines and Indonesia have made those countries the biggest producers of geothermal energy in Asia, and underground sources generate about 1900 megawatt (MW) and 600 MW of electricity for them respectively.
Geothermal power is generated by mining the earth’s heat. In areas with high temperature ground water at shallow depths, wells drilled through rock feed turbines with hot water or steam to create power.
ABB is the leading supplier of power and automation technologies for geothermal power plants in Asia, and has the largest installed base of power generation products and systems in both the Philippines and Indonesia.
Both countries are expanding their power generating capacity and building new geothermal power plants to reduce power deficits and meet challenging increases in demand for electricity of between six and nine percent a year.
ABB automation supplies the region’s latest projects
The two latest geothermal power plant projects to be announced – the 40 MW Northern Negros Geothermal Project (NNGP) in the Philippines and the 20 MW Lahendong II project in Indonesia – will both be controlled by advanced ABB automation systems.
For the NNGP project in the Philippines, ABB is supplying its award-winning Extended Automation System 800xA for the entire plant, as well as field instrumentation and Ethernet interfaces with the transmission grid and national load dispatch center.
Lahendong I in Indonesia, a 20 MW geothermal power plant which went onstream in the mid-1990s, is already controlled by an ABB automation system, and now its sister plant, the 20 MW Lahendong II, will also be controlled by an ABB distributed control system when it goes into operation in 2007.
ABB is working on both projects with Fuji Electric of Japan, the leading supplier of turbines and generators, and has previously collaborated with Fuji Electric on geothermal projects throughout Southeast Asia.