Construction of Sarulla geothermal power plant to start in H1 2014
Monday, November 4 2013 - 02:36 AM WIB
The planned 3x110 MW Sarulla geothermal power plant project is scheduled to enter construction phase in the first semester of next year. The developer of the project is currently in the process of completing the land acquisition.
This was said by Noor Wahyu Hidayat, Chief Business Development Officer of PT Medco Power Indonesia, one of the members of the consortium developing the project, to Petromnido.com recently.
The consortium is called Sarulla Operation Ltd. Other members include Japan?s Itochu Corp and Kyushu Electric, and Israel-based Ormat International.
?We have secured all the necessary licenses. We have acquired 60 ha of the 90 ha land required, while the remainder will be completed by end of this year,? Noor said, while the US$1.4 billion funding requirement will be completed in February of next year. ?Funding will come from ADB and JBIC,? he said.
He explained that once land acquisition and funding requirement have been completed, construction process can be started, initiated with drilling program. ?We?ll drill in 20 drilling locations so that the first (power plant) unit can start operation,? he said.
The target is for the first unit of the plant to start operation in 2016, second unit in 2017, and the third unit in 2018.
The power purchase agreement with state utility PLN has been signed in 2007.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak