Successful maintenance work concluded at Nga Awa Purua geothermal plant, NZ

Nga Awa Purua geothermal power plant by Mighty River Power, New Zealand (source: Mercury)

Alexander Richter 13 Nov 2017

Power utility Mercury in New Zealand has announced the successful conclusion of 15 days maintenance work at its Nga Awa Purua geothermal power plant near Rotokawa.

As reported by Stuff, about 230 contractors worked on site during the scheduled maintenance work. The plant was shut down October 27, 2017 and restarted on November 10, 2017. Contractors from various parts of New Zealand, Australia and Japan were working at the plant during the period.

The cost of the maintenance work is estimated at NZ$2 million (around US$1.5 million) with an additional loss in revenues per day of NZ$250,000 (US$180,000).

This was a scheduled maintenance outage and work to make sure the plant operates as designed around the clock. The next scheduled maintenance is in two years.

The Nga Awa Purua plant has an installed power generation capacity of 140 MW and is tapping resources of the Rotokawa geothermal field south of Taupo on the North Island of New Zealand. The plant features the largest single-shaft geothermal turbine in the world.

With a preparation of about one year to order replacement components, planning for the shutdown took 30 weeks.

The shutdown of such a large piece of machinery is complicated. The project started a year ago because replacement components needed to be ordered and built. Planning for the shutdown then took about 30 weeks.

Source: Stuff.co.nz