Chevron to launch geothermal power plant

Chevron to launch geothermal power plant

Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post/Bandung

U.S. energy giant Chevron is ready to launch a 110-megawatt (MW)
geothermal power plant project in Garut, West Java, after a team
was set up to hopefully resolve a variety of problems with the
local administration.

Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro
will preside over the opening of the Dradjat 3 project on Nov.
29, the company's local unit president Wahyudin Yudiana said here
on Thursday on the sidelines of a symposium held by the
Association of Indonesian Oil Engineering Experts (IATMI).

"We can resolve the problems with the Garut administration,"
said Yudiana. "We have a team, which includes people from the
local administration as well as the central government, to find
the best solutions regarding their wishes," he explained, but did
not go into the specifics of the problems encountered.

Yudiana said the electricity produced by the plant, the third
of its kind in the complex after the 55-MW Dradjat 1 and 90-MW
Dradjat 2, would be sold to the state power firm PT Perusahaan
Listrik Negara (PLN).

"The price will be above 4 U.S. cents (per kilowatthour),"
said Yudiana.

The construction of the Dradjat 3 plant was already commenced
at the beginning of the year, with operations scheduled to begin
in the second semester of 2006, he said.

Geothermal resources in Dradjat are abundant, clean, renewable
and able to easily generate up to 330 MW of electrical power.
Currently, more than half of the area's geothermal resources
remain untapped.

Next year, Chevron will also conduct a feasibility study on
the possibility of building a fourth geothermal power plant in
the same area, said Yudiana.

Located in the "ring of fire" volcano belt, Indonesia is
thought to have about 40 percent of the world's geothermal
reserves, equivalent to a total of 27,140 MW of power.

While the country has several operational geothermal power
plants, their combined capacity currently is only 807 MW or about
3 percent of the country's total geothermal potential.