Philippines DOE pushing ahead with low enthalpy project in Camiguin
Camigiuin, Philippines (source: flickr/ Dahon, creative commons)
Alexander Richter
3 Mar 2016
The Philippines' Department of Energy is planning work on a geothermal power plant in a low enthalpy geothermal resource on Camiguin island in the Philippines.
With mostly high temperature resources based geothermal power generation, higher energy prices make the use of binary systems increasingly interesting in the Philippines.
With lower temperatures e.g. at the Montelago geothermal project we have been reporting on, the Philippine’s Department of Energy started to explore viable geothermal development from low temperature resources in the country.
Now the Geothermal Energy Division of the Philippines’ DOE has announced a new low enthalpy geothermal project (LEGP) in the island province of Camiguin. It is expected that the geothermal power plant would provide sufficient electricity to the island of 100,000 inhabitants.
Sources for the LEGP were discovered by officials and technical men of the Renewable Energy Management Bureau (REMB) of the Department of Energy (DOE) who conducted a series of exploration and examination in areas of Mambajao and Catarman towns and other neighboring areas of that same province.
The DOE officials identified Camiguin as one of the potential areas for locally funded LEGP. DOE is also studying more geothermal resources in the island province.
DOE-REMB will be checking the rock types, structures, volcanic history and geohydrology of Camiguin through imageries interpretation and geological investigations.
There would also be a measurement of temperature and chemistry of the underground reservoir fluids from the water and gas samples, and identification of the flow of fluids located at the subsurface and estimation of reservoir’s shape and size.
DOE envisions to formulate policy and guidelines for the development of low to medium enthalpy geothermal energy resources for small-scale power generation, agro-industrial and direct application.
The agency also plans to offer potential geothermal areas to investors for energy exploration, development, and utilization
Source: Manila Bulletin
