Aboitiz Power Corp. said operations of the Tiwi geothermal power plant in Albay remain under normal conditions and that the facility continues to supply the Luzon grid despite increased activity of Mayon Volcano.
“The complex gross generation the past week has been around 120 megawatts (MW) with no incident relating to Mayon’s unrest… Nonetheless, despite Tiwi geothermal’s distance to Mayon’s crater of about 24 kilometers, we remain on safety alert for any possible eventualities,” said Jeffrey Estrella, AP Renewables Inc. president and chief operating officer, in a statement.
Estrella said the facility also observed no significant temperature and fluid flow effects on its geothermal electricity production or other issues.
He added the construction of a binary geothermal plant in the Tiwi facility continues to progress and is on track to be completed by the end of the year.
The facility will provide an additional 17 MW of electricity fueled by the residual heat from the hot brine side of the existing geothermal production process.
The province of Albay where the facility is located was placed under a state of calamity due to the threat of eruption of Mayon Volcano.
The volcano is under alert level 3 due to its “intensified unrest” or magmatic unrest. People living within the permanent danger zone or the six-kilometer radius have been evacuated.
Aboitiz Power eyes to spend around P190 billion over the next decade for an additional 3,700 MW of renewable energy, growing its capacities to 4,600 MW or three times the company’s current renewables portfolio by 2030.
