Ormat signs cooperation agreement for Taiwan geothermal development

Qingshui geothermal park, Yilan County/ Taiwan (source: flickr/ Wei-Te Wong, creative commons)

Ormat Technologies Inc. (Ormat) has signed a cooperation agreement with Taiwanese companies Jieyuan Energy Development (JY Energy) and Fengyu Green Energy (Fengyu Green) to jointly develop geothermal project in Taiwan. The three-party cooperation aims to develop geothermal power plants with an installed capacity of more than 20 MW in New Taipei and Yilan by the end of 2025.

Under the cooperation agreement, Fengyu Green will provide drilling and power plant construction services, Ormat will provide generator sets and technology, and JY Energy will have power plant operations management. This creates a vertically integrated geothermal industry chain.

JY Energy is a subsidiary of construction firm Jiangjie Group. In November 2021, JY Energy in cooperation with Taiwan Electric Power Co. Ltd. officially inaugurated the 4.2-MW Qingshui geothermal power plant in Yilan. JY Energy is also developing the  Liuhuangziping project in the Datunshan geothermal resource of area of New Taipei City with a planned 4-MW capacity.

According to JY Energy General Manager Lin Boxiu, both New Taipei and Yilan have huge thermal reserves at a scale of hundreds of MW. For this cooperation, large-scale projects will be targeted after 2025. The smallest single power plant capacity will be 20 MW with an option to increase to 100 MW later.

Earlier this year, a memorandum of cooperation between 12 domestic colleges and universities was established under the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Taiwan. The “Geothermal Exploration University” aims to integrate geothermal-related skills, technologies, and information to accelerate the development of the Taiwanese geothermal sector.

Source: TechNews.tw