News

Casita-San Cristobal in Nicaragua may hold more potential than initially estimated.

Casita-San Cristobal in Nicaragua may hold more potential than initially estimated. San Cristobal volcano, Nicaragua (source: flickr/ hhbcphotos, creative commons)
Francisco Rojas 24 Sep 2013

The initial potential estimated in the project Casita- San Cristóbal, Nicaragua, has been estimated in initial studies around 35 MW yet it is still waiting for definitive exploratory results. Ministry sources have indicated that it could even exceed 100 MW.

The Casita volcano could be one of the new clean energy sources in NIcaragua with 35 megawatts, considering that all the development test come back positive.

Currently the plan is in the exploratory stage and although it is not certain that enough heat can be obtained for electricity generation purposes, the Deputy Minister of Energy and Mines, Lorena Lanzas, said it “is evaluating the use of the volcano to enter the production phase”

The exploration phase involves the drilling of a well, which will determine the existence of vapor in sufficient quantities to generate 35 megawatts of energy, but as Lanzas mentioned, the potential is even greater.

“Without deep drilling, one cannot assess what resources are available,” says Ms. Lanzas.

One of the biggest impediments to this type of work in geothermal energy is the cost of investments and technologies.

“It looks like there is enough (heat), but more research is still needed to install a generation plant to exploit the volcano,” said Ms. Lanzas.

It is also interesting to consider that the Government is expecting that the potential for this area be positioned around 100 MW.

Another major project that Nicaragua is in the area of ??the San Jacinto geothermal is Tizate, which produces nearly seventy megawatts of clean energy, which are injected directly into the national electricity transmission system and contributes to the change in the matrix.

Source: La prensa.com.ni and PEG