The Sarulla Geothermal Power Plant, currently being built by Hyundai Engineering & Construction, is expected to help Indonesia solve its problems with its power supply.
In Indonesia’s northern Sumatra, the world’s single largest geothermal power plant is being built with Korean technology.
Located on the circum-Pacific earthquake belt, Indonesia has the world’s largest volume of geothermal energy, as approximately 40 percent of the world’s total geothermal energy is concentrated there. The country’s potential capacity for electricity generation is estimated at 28,000 megawatts. However, Indonesia currently uses only four percent of the total volume of its geothermal energy reserves.
Since 2004, Indonesia’s electricity demand has exceeded its supply. To solve the lack of power and to produce clean energy, the Indonesian government has been aiming to increase the capacity of geothermal energy up to 12,000 megawatts by 2025. Indonesia has also been implementing plans to replace 20 percent of its total energy sources with renewable energy sources by 2025.
Hyundai Engineering & Construction won the bid for the Sarulla Geothermal Power Plant in 2013, and once it’s completed it will have a capacity of 330 megawatts. It will be constructed in three phases, of 110 megawatts each. This is the same power capacity that can provide electricity to up to 210,000 households at the same time. Scheduled to be finished by March 2018, this plant uses both water and steam to generate electricity, unlike existing geothermal power plants that use only steam that is created from steam and water that have been drawn from underground.
The Sarulla Geothermal Plant uses a “brine binary” method to make electricity. It uses pentane, a liquid with a boiling point lower than that of water, to vaporize the hot water from underground. After that, the cooled steam is used again to generate electricity, not cooled to become water. Thanks to such more effective measures, each phase can produce 110 megawatts of electricity. This is twice as much as existing geothermal power plants.
To generate electricity, existing geothermal power plants use only hot steam after drawing water and steam from underground. The unused water and steam is then returned to the ground again. The average power generation capacity of these plants is about 40 to 60 megawatts.
The first phase of the Sarulla Geothermal Plant will be completed by 2017, and the construction of the second and third phases will be finished afterward.
By Yoon Sojung
Korea.net Staff Writer
arete@korea.kr
The Sarulla Geothermal Plant is located in northern Sumatra and upon completion in 2018 will be the world’s largest geothermal power plant.
