What's happening at PGV
Thursday August 6, 2009
Geothermal production: "Very, very precise"
Geothermal energy got a lot of attention this month on Hawaii Public Radio’s “Energy Futures” program. Puna Geothermal Venture (PGV) plant manager Michael Kaleikini was a guest along with state Senator Kalani English of Maui.
Geothermal production has evolved enormously since the early days (before Puna Geothermal Venture was involved), said Kaleikini.
In the 1970s, the State of Hawaii drilled an experimental 3 MW well on the Big Island and uncovered a major geothermal reservoir in the Kilauea East Rift Zone. It was intended as a test, and only a test, with none of the safeguards and abatements of a modern commercial unit. It was also one of the hottest geothermal wells in the world.
Instead of two years, the plant operated for eight—its production was sorely needed.
“The difference between that test well and our facility today shows great improvement in the technology,” Kaleikini said. “PGV is designed to be a closed-loop system. Everything that comes up that we cannot use goes back in the ground.“
PGV was purchased by Ormat Technologies, Inc. in 2004, a global leader with more than four decades of experience in developing environmentally-friendly, state-of-the-art geothermal technologies.
Senator English agreed with Kaleikini that geothermal can be an anchor of our renewables. “Geoethermal energy is rare in that it is both a firm power and renewable,” he said. “Today it is very, very precise.”
And, it isn’t oil.