Swiss electrical equipment supplier ABB has secured a multi-million dollar deal to upgrade six geothermal units at two power plants in the Philippines, with total capacity of about 200MW.
Image: Green Core Geothermal’s geothermal plant in the Philippines. Photo: Courtesy of ABB.
The order has been placed by Energy Development Corporation (EDC) and its subsidiary Green Core Geothermal. As per the order, ABB will also deliver a new Control System Integration (CSI) solution for these plants and an area control center facility.
The geothermal plants, Palinpinon 1 and Palinpinon 2 are located in Valencia, a municipality on Negros, the fourth largest island of the Philippines. The geothermal plants tap into Negros’ volcanic activity to generate electricity to meet the growth in energy demand in the central part of the country.
The geothermal plants, which run on Fuji-make turbines, were commissioned back in 1983 and completed in the mid-1990s.
The aim of the ABB’s project is to deliver a modern control system which can integrate across all plants that can be easily upgraded over time to benefit from the latest digital technology.
The scope of the contract includes conversion of a mechanical electro-hydraulic governor to a digital version and replacing the existing low-pressure turbine hydraulic equipment with a new high-pressure solution. The Swiss company will also install performance calculation and comprehensive cyber security solutions to protect the assets.
The solution to be implemented for the geothermal plants is ABB Ability Symphony Plus, which is part of ABB Ability digital portfolio, a unified, cross-industry digital offering.
Besides increasing operational and maintenance efficiency of the plants, the solution will assist the management in the decision-making by offering improved access to operational information. It will also provide central control and remote monitoring of the power plants and steam fields from one location.
ABB power generation & water business managing director Kevin Kosisko said: “With this order, ABB has been able to leverage its extensive experience in digital technologies, in high-pressure turbine control systems and in geothermal plants in this region, as well as its close working relationship with EDC on previous projects.
“This project reflects ABB’s aspiration of enabling a cleaner planet by making sustainable operations more accessible for our customers through innovative emerging digital technologies.”