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Turboden to supply 8 MW geothermal plant to LaGeo in El Salvador

Turboden to supply 8 MW geothermal plant to LaGeo in El Salvador Berlin geothermal power plant of LaGeo, El Salvador (source: LaGeo)
Alexander Richter 16 Jul 2019

With the contract on supply of an 8 MW geothermal power plant to LaGeo in El Salvador, Italian Turboden will deliver its 380th ORC plant world wide.

Turboden signed an agreement with La Geo for the supply of an ORC geothermal power plant in El Salvador, at Berlín Geothermal Field. The plant is designed to produce up to 8 MWe.

LaGeo is a geothermal development company, active in the development and exploitation of geothermal resources in El Salvador. As of today, LaGeo contributes to 24% of the electricity need in El Salvador, where geothermal has been one of the main sources of electricity since the mid-1970s.

Today the total installed capacity by LaGeo from geothermal resources in the country is 204 MWe, (Ahuachapán 95 MWe, Berlin 109 MWe) representing about 15% of total installed capacity in the country.

During 2003-2007, a third single flash condensing unit went on line (for about 44 MWe) along with a pumping station to reinject the hot brine. In order to improve the whole thermal efficiency of the complex, a first binary unit was commissioned in 2007 as bottoming stage.

Turboden ORC unit will operate with the hot separated brine from a group of wells, without requiring extra drilling, recovering heat at 172°C before reinjection. Reinjection temperature has been selected in order to avoid super saturation of silica in the geothermal brine. This new bottoming plant will further contribute to the country’s renewable base-load generation, increasing the savings of CO2 emissions.

“There are about 5 GWe of operating single flash plants in the world. With this new project we see a big potential for our Company to integrate its technology with existing geothermal plants, making them more efficient, with no additional drilling required. This first plant in Central America is a great result for us, after the successful start-up of the 14 MWe Lightning Dock unit in New Mexico.”, so Mr. Paolo Bertuzzi, Turboden CEO.

Source: company release