The new facility will have a net capacity of 5.3 MW and will convert the recovered waste heat from the exhaust of an existing gas turbine into electricity. The turbine is located at a compressor station along the Northern Border natural gas pipeline and Ormat has already secured the rights to the waste heat for the new facility.
Ormat CEO Dita Bronicki said, "We are encouraged by the increased attention to energy efficiency and the confidence in our REG technology. Using clean solutions such as Ormat's REG units is a win-win strategy all around, providing both parties with one of the cleanest, fastest and most cost efficient ways to generate power while reducing carbon emissions. While each of our REG power plants along the Northern Border pipeline is only about 5 MW, when combining the opportunities along this one pipeline alone, we are generating power equivalent to the capacity of one of our 50 MW geothermal power plants."
Ormat expects the plant to be commissioned in 2009 or early 2010. With the addition of this new REG facility, Ormat will owns a total of nine units with an installed capacity of nearly 50 MW along the Northern Border pipeline which are currently under operation and under various stages of construction. This is the first Ormat plant in Minnesota, a state that has enacted a Renewable Portfolio Standards program. The Ormat REG facility consists of an ORMAT Energy Converter (OEC) based on Organic Rankine Cycle technology, which converts recovered heat to electric power without the need for any additional fuel or water. The OEC unit is environmentally benign, as it has no emissions of CO2 or NOX.
