Geothermal facilities resume operations

Energy Development Corp. has finally resumed commercial operations of the Bacon-Manito geothermal power plants in Albay and Sorsogon, generating a total of 110 megawatts starting Monday.

This brings EDC closer to completing its $66-million rehabilitation program that targets to increase the generation capacity of the geothermal plants to 130 MW.

“Declaring commercial operations marks the full integration of EDC’s operations for the [two 55-MW units of] Bacman I power plant. We are very happy to have the plant back in service despite all the technical challenges we have encountered along the way. It is about time the plant and the Bacman steam resource serve the Filipino consumers again,” said EDC president Richard B. Tantoco.

In a statement, Tantoco explained that for the past three to four weeks, Bacman I’s two unit have been generating energy during their testing and reliability runs. Both 55-MW units have been operating at full load since Jan. 27 and Feb. 11, respectively.

Only the BacMan I geothermal facility, which has two 55-MW power units both commissioned in 1993, has been fully rehabilitated. The BacMan II facility, which has only one remaining 20-MW unit from the original two units, was not yet online, Tantoco explained in a separate text message on Tuesday.

“We will not give a forecast on [the completion of the BacMan2 rehabilitation] for now. [We’re] still encountering challenges. This unit we are rehabilitating was inundated by and submerged in mud during National Power Corp. days,” Tantoco explained.

The resumption of BacMan’s commercial operations will allow it to finally generate revenues, previously estimated at about P4.3 billion annually. EDC, however, may not hit this target annual revenue because the facilities went commercial only in end-February and because BacMan 2 has yet to start operations, Tantoco explained.

EDC acquired the geothermal complex from the government in 2010, during which the power plants were practically shutdown, generating only 3 percent of capacity. The target then of the rehabilitation activities, which began in 2010, was to ramp up the capacity to 130 MW.