Pertamina completes testing of Lahendong ORC geothermal pilot plant

The 500-kW Lahendong ORC geothermal pilot plant (source: Kaishan)

On December 9, 2022, PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy (PGE) completed the testing of the 500-kW Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) power plant in Lahendong in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. The power plant has now passed the strict performance test of the owner and the general contractor.

Earlier in 2022, PGE announced the completion of construction of the binary cycle geothermal power plant. China-based Kaishan was the sole provider of the power plant equipment and Yokogawa was selected as the project contractor.

Most of the geothermal power plants in Indonesia are of the single-flash steam turbine type that only uses steam from two-phase geothermal fluid to generate electricity. This has led to limited use of low to medium enthalpy geothermal resources for power generation applications.  The ORC generator sets of Kaishan can make the construction of small-scale geothermal power stations a reality, as well as increase the production capacities of single-flash steam turbine units.

It was reported that utilizing the existing idle geothermal wells in Indonesia’s geothermal fields and the hot brine of geothermal power stations can produce an additional 2000 MW of power without having to drill new geothermal wells. The successful implementation of binary technology in Lahendong is planned to be replicated in other PGE geothermal areas.

Source: Kaishan