N.Z. aid, know-how helping Filipinos to become major geothermal power

Press, 26 October 1982, Page 25

N.Z. aid, know-how helping Filipinos to become major geothermal power

By 1985, the Philippines could be the world s biggest producer of geothermal power. The latest estimates predict the country will have 1726 megawatts of installed capacity by then, which would put it ahead of the United States and Italy. New Zealand, as part of its Bilaterial Aid agreements, has been strongly involved in the development. NEVILLE PEAT, information officer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, recently visited the Philippines and reports on the huge development.

The old man's face broke into a smile. “Very good idea." he said through an interpreter. “I light my house for six pesos (85 cents) a month. Before, the kerosene lamp cost fifteen pesos, more than twice as much.” A retired* shopkeeper, he obviously knew about budgeting. And he knew enough about electricity to realise that the new power poles and overhead wires running through his leafy village in rural Southern Negros in the Visayas region of the Philippines could bring dramatic change. He pointed to a small fluorescent lamp at the ceiling, the only electric light in the house. “Next I will buy a small radio to plug into the power, and after that, maybe in a few years. I can afford an electric iron for my wife." Could he imagine acquiring a refrigerator for his household? Another grin, wry this time. “Aah! I would need to save for a lifetime!" In an area where the average daily wage is about $2.50 the Government-backed rural electrification programme is making its mark slowly on the village way of life — lighting for houses,

churches, and schools, power for drying copra. But the power flowing through the retired shopkeeper's village, 20 kilometres south of the University city of Dumaguete, is the beginning of bold new developments. By November trucks will thunder past the old man’s home with heavy drilling equipment for a cleared site above the village. How much he and his neighbours will understand about the project is hard to say. They will learn it has to do with the fizzy hot springs back in the hills and the streams which produce strange orange, yellow, and green colours. And they will see the equipment digging deep into the earth to tap the heat and somehow turn it into electricity — more electricity than they could possibly conceive. For this Baslay-Dauin region of Southern Negros is on the front-line of the Philippine Government's rapidly expanding geothermal energy programme. Three exploratory wells by mid-1983 is the order — and orders like it are being repeated for geothermal

prospects throughout the country. New Zealand scientists and engineers assigned by the Auckland consultants, Kingston Reynolds Thom and Allardice (K.R.T.A.), are supervising the exploratory work under a Bilateral Aid agreement between the Governments of New Zealand and the Philippines. Seven sites on four main islands ' — Luzon, Leyte, Negros, and Mindanao — are being explored at present, with several more surveys in prospect. The Baslay-Dauin site, on the southern shoulder of the dormant volcano Ceurnos de Negro (1862 metres), contains exciting surface indicators of a substantial underground reservoir of steam - hot springs, mineralisation, fumeroles and. gas seepages. Exploration here is an offshoot of a project on the other side of the volcano which is well advanced. Indeed, electricity already flows from it. Two 1.5-mega-watt generators were installed in 1980 and they alone provide enough power for coastal Dumaguete (population. 80,000). Diesel sets and an 800-kilowatt hydro station

serviced the city previouslv. The two small geothermal power plants are a taste of things to come — development of a scale to startle Dumaguete let alone the villages spreading out from it under the rural electrification programme. Palinpinon I is a 112.5megawatt station requiring steam in November. The pace of construction is astounding. Work started on the powerhouse just a vear ago.

Within a few hundred metres of the powerhouse, three drilling rigs work round the clock to complete the 19 production wells and seven reinjection wells (for effluent disposal) which will serve the station. K.R.T.A. engineers and drilling superintendents are involved here, too. Recently the firm began supervising construction of the pipeline and associated civil engineering work. What impresses a visitor is

the project s compact nature. The 19 production wells are confined to four drill pads which take up not more than four hectares. The pipeline will extend no further than 350 metres from the powerhouse. All this is possible as a" result of a technique called directional drilling (as opposed to vertical drilling). The wells fan out underground to tap a steam reserve a lot broader than the surface works would suggest. In the case of Palinpinon I about four square kilometres is involved. Another feature of the wells is that they are deep. They average about 3000 metres. Earlier this year K.R.T.A. completed a feasibility study for a second station on an adjacent steamfield - Palinpinon II (110 megawatts). Exploration so far has confirmed the presence of enough steam to generate 55 megawatts. Four more wells by mid-1983 are expected to prove the balance. The story of the Palinpinon development goes back 10 years. The project takes its name from a village in the lower part of the Okoy River valley. No roads penetrated the steep and rugged upper reaches of the valley and the few families living there were engaged in subsistence shifting cultivation. In 1973, the Philippines Commission of Vulcanology explored the valley's "hot spots." and about a year later a New Zealand aidfunded mission continued the investigation. This involved advisers from K.R.T.A. and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. In 1976, two holes, up to 600 metres deep, were drilled by a truck-mounted rig provided by New Zealand. The results encouraged further exploratory drilling, and by mid-1979 the engineers were confident they had found a steamfield worth developing. Temperatures in the field were in the 300 degrees Celsius range, about 60 degrees above the margin for electricity generation. The Southern Negros Geothermal Project was a going concern. K.R.T.A.’s senior geothermal engineer on the project. Angus Brodie, describes the New Zealand aid work as being critical to the whole venture. “New Zealand put up the risk money — the funds for exploration," he says. "Now we suspect we're sitting on an extremely large reservoir by world standards. Quite

possibly the Southern Negros field could generate 1000 megawatts." On Leyte, another main island in the Visayas region, there are distinct parallels. The Tongonan geothermal project in a mountainous jungle area will soon be producing electricity far in excess of present local demand. Tongonan featured in the early work done by K.R.T.A. in the Philippines. “The promise of the field was evident from the first reconnaissance. which prompted the Filipinos to request further aid to drill shallow testing wells." says Robin Kingston, the K.R.T.A. managing director. "The drilling and scientific exploration work in the jungle was well under way when the 1973 oil crisis occurred. The Philippine Government promptly raised its target for Leyte geothermal from 15 megawatts to 200 and asked if New Zealand could extend its aid programme."

New Zealand agreed. In 1974, the Government allocated $lO million for geothermal exploration and development in the Philippines and added $3.5 million to the programme in 1978. Throughout this period K.R.T.A. was engaged as technical consultants to the Philippine energy agencies. K.R.T.A.'s work in the Philippines is now a mixture of aid-funded and commercial contracts, the latter separately negotiated with the Philippine agencies. Examples of the commercial opportunities are the pipeline supervision work at Palinpinon I and a preliminary design study for the Tongonan II station. The new five-year Energy-Co-operation Programme agreed to by the Governments of New Zealand and the Philippines in 1980 provides for an expenditure of about $1 million a year in Bilateral Aid funds on the evaluation of geothermal prospects, technical assistance, and training. The Philippine authorities themselves are now responsible for the bulk of the geothermal development programme — a measure, in a way, of the impact of New Zealand technology over the past decade.

Second station is planned

$1 million of Aid funds