New Zealand’s Contact Energy has awarded a $42 million contract for the construction of a new geothermal power plant to Ormat Technologies of the USA.
Ormat will supply and build a 23.3 MW binary power station on Centennial Drive, Taupo and expects to complete the work within two years.
The Centennial Drive plant will be of similar design to the Wairakei binary plant, which was built by Ormat in 2004. Contact Energy, which is New Zealand’s largest geothermal power plant owner as well as the country’s largest wholesaler and retailer of natural gas, says it has already drilled the wells necessary to power the station as part of its programme to appraise the Tauhara steamfield.
The total cost of the project will be approximately NZ$100 million ($76 million), says Contact, which last year launched a NZ$2 billion renewable energy investment drive.
The new plant will use air-cooled condensers and will allow 100 per cent geothermal fluid reinjection to help sustain reservoir pressure. It will be equipped with Ormat’s organic turbine.
Ormat says the contract marks the twelfth geothermal plant that it has supplied to New Zealand.
Contact is planning to develop the Tauhara steamfield, starting with the commissioning of a new binary plant in 2010. It is expecting to develop a second plant at the field with a capacity of between 200 and 240 MW.