EDC temporarily shuts down Bacon Manito plant
Bacon-Manito geothermal power plant, Philippines (source: First Gen Corp.)
Alexander Richter
5 Mar 2013
Technical troubles with Unit 2 of its BacMan I geothermal power plant in the Philppines, EDC has shut down the full 110 MW complex.
Only days after EDC resumed operation at its 110 MW Bacon-Manito geothermal plants in the Philippines, EDC now reports it had shut down the 55 MW Unit 2 of BacMan I after a turbine blade was sheared of, causing damage to the unit.
“We recognize the serious nature of this new setback to the BacMan Unit 2. We will do everything to determine the cause of this problem and to ensure that this is completely resolved at the soonest time possible,” said EDC president Richard B. Tantoco.
In the meantime, EDC also decided to temporarily suspend the operations of the 55-MW Unit 1 of BacMan I, even if the unit did not experience similar problems.
It should be recalled that EDC resumed commercial operations of the BacMan facilities only last Monday.
However, 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 said earlier.
EDC acquired the geothermal complex from the government in 2010, during which the power plants were practically shutdown, with a generating availability of only 3 percent. The target then of the rehabilitation activities, which began in 2010, was to ramp up the capacity to 130 MW.”
Immediately the stock of EDC and its parent firm First Gen fell about 11 percent or 8 percent for FirstGen.
Source: Business Inquirer
