Aboitiz Power invests $150M for rehab of Tiwi-MakBan

Manila Bulletin 
By Myrna M. Velasco 
Published: August 30, 2013 
To ramp up the capacity of its Tiwi and Makiling-Banahaw (MakBan) geothermal assets acquisition, the operating subsidiary of Aboitiz Power Corporation injected $150-million capital outlay for the rehabilitation of its generation units, primarily those specified in the sale agreement with seller Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporationm (PSALM).
Aboitiz Power President and Chief Executive Officer Erramon I. Aboitiz said the company was able to raise the capacity of the facilities to their sustainable output of 400 megawatts.
Specifically for Units 5 and 6 of the MakBan geothermal facility, AP Renewables Inc. (APRI) was able to bring up their capacity to 55MW each, a level that run close to installed.
Moving forward, Aboitiz noted that “there’s general desire between them and steam supplier (Philippine Geothermal Production Company Inc.) to increase the plants’ output with the drilling of make-up wells.”
He qualified nevertheless that since steam production already reached declining rate, there would just be so much that they can do when it comes to increasing electricity generation at the plants.
Post-rehab at the Tiwi-MakBan plants, APRI was able to lift the availability factor at MakBan facility to 97.52 percent, up 15.3 percent from 82.49-percent previously; while at Tiwi, it was raised to 97.83 percent or higher by 24.73 percent from 73.10 percent.
Availability factor is measured via the number of hours when the plant is able to generate electricity over a certain period – often, it is divided by the total number of hours in a year.
Forced outage at the plants had also been pared, with Aboitiz Power logging very significant improvement for Tiwi at 1.67 percent from 3.55 percent previously; and MakBan at 2.06-percent from 3.81 percent.
Aboitiz Power said the rehabilitation works undertaken at the plants not only resulted in improved generation efficiencies, but had also “expanded (the company’s) renewable energy footprint.”
Part of the side developments being done at the facilities are anchored on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs of the company.
The latest major addition was the Cleanergy Center which was inaugurated by Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla and the host local government officials on August 28.   source