Leyte plants back in operation by Q3, says EDC

By Riza T. Olchondra 
Philippine Daily Inquirer 
8:44 pm | Sunday, January 19th, 2014

The 650-megawatt Unified Leyte Geothermal Power Plant complex and the 112.5-MW Tongonan geothermal 1 power plant facilities in “Yolanda”-hit Leyte province may be back online in the third quarter as repairs progress, according to operator Energy Development Corp (EDC). These were among the power infrastructure damaged when Supertyphoon “Yolanda” hit Eastern Visayas and nearby areas in November 2013.

“We should have all the units back in operation around August and possibly earlier depending on the availability of spares, which is dependent on manufacturing lead-time,” EDC president and COO Richard B. Tantoco said over the weekend.

Tantoco said the Malitbog plant within the Unified Leyte complex was producing 155MW with two of three units back in operation. The 130MW Upper Mahiao is running with all four units active, plus the optimization plants producing around 25MW. An optimization plant generates energy from excess pressure or fluids.

The Tongonan plant has two of three plants running and has about 75MW in nominal power output.

Unified Leyte consists of the 125MW Upper Mahiao, 232.5MW Malitbog, 180MW Mahanagdong and 51MW Optimization plants.

In Sitio (sub-village) Sambaloran, Barangay (village) Lim-Ao, in Kananga, the Tongonan geothermal power plant consists of three 37.5-MW units that went into commercial operation in 1983.

In November 2013, EDC said several of its facilities in Tongonan had become inoperable. In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, EDC said the cooling towers of the 232.5MW Malitbog, 180MW Mahanagdong, and 112.5MW Tongonan 1 power plants were inoperable due to significant damage sustained from  Supertyphoon Yolanda.

Part of the cooling system of the 125MW Upper Mahiao Power Plant was damaged. The control systems of Tongonan, Mahanagdong and Upper Mahiao also sustained water damage.

EDC’s Leyte Geothermal Production Field supplies the steam used by Unified Leyte and Tongonan I for power generation.

The Lopez-led firm remains the largest producer of geothermal energy in the Philippines, accounting for 62 percent of the total country installed geothermal capacity.  It has also recently ventured into a wind power project in Burgos, Ilocos Norte province.  source