AboitizPower: Tiwi geothermal plant ops unaffected by Mayon unrest

Aboitiz Power Corporation (AboitizPower) on Thursday said the operations of its Tiwi Geothermal Power Plant in Albay remain normal and unhampered despite the unrest of Mayon Volcano.

In a statement, AboitizPower Renewables Inc. (APRI) president and chief operating officer Jeffrey Estrella said that the power facility was observed to have no significant temperature and fluid flow effects on its geothermal electricity production or other issues.

“The complex gross generation for the past week has been around 120 megawatts (MW) with no incident relating to Mayon's unrest,” said Estrella.

“Nonetheless, despite Tiwi Geothermal’s distance to Mayon’s crater of about 24 kilometers, we remain on safety alert for any possible eventualities,” he added.

The APRI chief added that construction of a binary geothermal plant in the Tiwi facility continues to progress.

The binary plant — which will produce electricity from residual heat from the hot brine side of the geothermal production process — is planned to provide 17 MW of clean energy by the end of the year.

The province of Albay was placed under state of calamity due to the threat of eruption by Mayon Volcano, which is currently under Alert Level 3 due to its “intensified unrest” or magmatic unrest.

People living within the six-kilometer permanent danger zone of the volcano have been evacuated. —Ted Cordero/KBK, GMA Integrated News