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A NEVER-BEFORE SEEN GLIMPSE INTO TO THE DEPTH OF THE WELL

 By Benjamin Eilan 

Ormat engineers has been developing a new sensor to easily operate production pump in wells that are consider extremely challenging.

One of the main challenges in the operation and commissioning process of a deep geothermal line shaft pump is the differential movement between rotating and stationary parts.

Production pump are designed with extra axial play, meaning, they can tolerate more differential movement between rotating and stationary parts before an impact occurs.

However, in some cases even this extra axial play is not enough, and an impact between rotor and stator occurs, in what is called "topping" or "bottoming". This kind of impact can end in a very costly catastrophic failure, in some cases, only a few minutes (!) after a pump has been commissioned.

To answer this challenge, Ormat has developed and patented a novel downhole position sensor which tracks the rotor's relative position in real time, enabling operations teams to perform all commissioning and operations with a never-before seen glimpse into to the depth of the well.

Ormat has been developing and testing this sensor over the last few years, and with its aid – easily operating production pump in wells that were previously considered extremely challenging.

The chart below illustrates this sensor's contribution: a startup of a deep pump was attempted, but the position sensor alerted that the impellers were dangerously close to contacting the bottom of the bowls, so the pump was immediately stopped, it's spacing was readjusted, and it has been running ever since.

HIGHER LOAD CAPACITY ENABLES A 30% INCREASE IN PRODUCTION PUMP FLOWRATE

By Benjamin Eilan 

A design change on an industry standard has enabled ORMAT to increase flow and generation revenue without costly drilling of more wells

For many years Ormat has been successfully driving its line shaft production pumps with industry standard lineshafts. A line shaft transfers the power from the motor, which located on the ground, to the pump deep below the surface.

While widely used, the industry standard equipment has its power limitations, practically limiting the pumped flowrate from a single well. In an effort to increase flowrate from existing wells, Ormat developed, in close collaboration with its vendors, an extended lineshaft assembly, including all the associated parts.

The extended lineshaft has been successfully installed and operated in wells in Ormat's fleet and enabled an increase of 30% in the flowrate extracted from these wells, directly impacting the power generation in the plant.

INCREASING PRODUCT LIFE AND PERFORMANCE WITH CUTTING-EDGE TECHNOLOGY

By Alex Katz

We are proud to introduce our new, high-performance between-bearings turbine, yet another step towards our vision of a sustainable, renewable energy future.

Utilizing the traditional radially split design, the turbine rotor in the new product is supported between the axially spaced bearings. The new design offers the best of both worlds. Maintaining the radially split design optimizes high temperature and pressure management while keeping costs to a minimum. The between-bearings rotor Enhances rotor durability, increasing the product life of the bearings and improving the power output from a single turbine by up to 50% when compared to the overhang design.

Ormat’s between-bearings turbine design is field-proven, with over 25 turbines already in operation globally. It operates with up to five expansion stages, for maximum performance and efficiency.

Steamboat Hills Repower, 2020

Steamboat Complex 1988-2020, NV, USA, 84 MW

We’re on a mission to become a leading global provider of renewable energy, while building a geographically balanced portfolio of geothermal, recovered energy, and storage assets. The between-bearings turbine is the newest addition to the Ormat family of advanced technology that already includes 71 patents…and counting! We aren’t going to stop here—our team of over 200 engineers is continually working on new technologies to improve power stations through creative thinking and advanced technology. Stay tuned to find out what they come up with next.

Congratulations to our client, Top Energy, for the commissioning of the Ngawha geothermal power station in New Zealand. The Ngawha power station will generate 32MW of power, making it one of the largest provider of power in New Zealand.

Ormat is proud to have provided the engineering, procurement, and construction services to bring Top Energy’s newest power station to life, and we’re ready to help your company realize its full energy potential with our wide variety of geothermal production products and services.

Community owned Top Energy recently commissioned the Ngāwhā geothermal power station (OEC4) after an intensive three-year construction, well drilling and plant assembly programme.
Despite delays due to COVID-19 the power station was completed six months earlier than planned.
A testament to the hard work the company and its contractors United Civil Construction, Iceland
Drilling, Culham Engineering and Ormat Technology, Inc.
The Ngāwhā power station secures an independent, renewable and affordable power supply, ending the region’s reliance on the National Grid and electricity being transported from the south.

Read more in Top Energy Public Advertise

We are proud to announce that Gurmat EFE 8 unit 1 was recently brought online at an exceptional short schedule, after a unique effort of the owner and Ormat start-up teams.

"Once again a fruitful and trustful cooperation between Guris and Ormat is proven to lead to a successful implementation and productive project." Says Gad Shoshan, Sales Director for the Turkish Market

The 30 MW unit, one of two in this project, brings the Germencik “Idris” site, west of Aydin to a total capacity of 260 MW which 165 MW produced out of 7 Ormat units."We cooperate with Ormat for many years. We went through many commercial and technical discussions. Down the road we know that we will get a reliable and efficient machine, operated at the shortest schedule" says Riza Kadirli Deputy General Manager of Guris "Since Ormat is the major operator of its equipment, we are sure that every piece of the equipment installed in our power plant is the highest quality from O&M perspective. After all, geothermal is a long-term business".

EFE8 unit 1 is the 42 unit operation in Turkey starting 2006. The total installed capacity of 923 MW makes Ormat the largest equipment producer in the Turkish geothermal industry.  

ABOUT ORMAT TECHNOLOGIES

With over five decades of experience, Ormat Technologies, Inc. is a leading geothermal Company and the only vertically integrated Company engaged in geothermal, recovered energy generation (REG) and Energy Storage.

With 68 U.S. patents, Ormat’s power solutions have been refined and perfected under the most grueling environmental conditions. Ormat has 578 employees in the United States and 830 overseas.

Ormat’s flexible, modular solutions for geothermal power, REG and Storage are ideal for the vast range of resource characteristics. The Company has engineered, manufactured and constructed power plants, which it currently owns or has installed to utilities and developers worldwide, totaling over 3,000 MW of gross capacity. Ormat’s current 933 MW generating portfolio is spread globally in the U.S., Guatemala, Guadeloupe, Honduras, Indonesia and Kenya.

We’re excited to announce that as of November 5, 2020 our Puna power plant has resumed operation supplying clean, renewable energy for Hawaii. We expect to reach full operation by the middle of 2021.

Over the past two and a half years, Ormat has been working closely with Hawaiian Electric to get our Puna Geothermal Power Plant back up and running after the devastating Kilauea Volcano eruption.

PGV came online in 1993, providing Hawai'i Island with clean, safe, renewable, reliable and affordable energy. 

On Sunday afternoon, May 27th (Hawaiian time), the approaching lava from the erupting Kilauea volcano, blocked the main access road to the power plant, covered the wellheads of two geothermal wells, burnt  the substation of the complex and an adjacent warehouse that stored a drilling rig.

“After safely securing the plant during the lava intrusion all we could do is sit back and watch this amazing phenomenon.” says Jordan Hara, Ormats power plant manager “I really appreciated Ormat’s commitment and support given to our Puna plant during this event and through recovery. When the lava stopped the next thing that came to my mind is when can we get back online”.

Our teams worked day and night to get the power plant back on. On November 5th, 2020, the electricity production partially resumed. We expect to gradually ramp up to 15 MW by the end of 2020, subject to the successful connection of an additional production well to the power plant.

Final goal is resuming full operation by the middle of 2021.

ABOUT ORMAT TECHNOLOGIES

With over five decades of experience, Ormat Technologies, Inc. is a leading geothermal Company and the only vertically integrated Company engaged in geothermal, recovered energy generation (REG) and Energy Storage.

With 68 U.S. patents, Ormat’s power solutions have been refined and perfected under the most grueling environmental conditions. Ormat has 578 employees in the United States and 830 overseas.

Ormat’s flexible, modular solutions for geothermal power, REG and Storage are ideal for the vast range of resource characteristics. The Company has engineered, manufactured and constructed power plants, which it currently owns or has installed to utilities and developers worldwide, totaling over 3,000 MW of gross capacity. Ormat’s current 933 MW generating portfolio is spread globally in the U.S., Guatemala, Guadeloupe, Honduras, Indonesia and Kenya.

The month of October 2020 has seen a tremendous growth of its geothermal power generation capacity. Ormat Technologies had a great part in this growth!

In October alone we have operated 3 geothermal power plant for our customers and partners. Among the plants are the 3.5 MW Emirler geothermal power plant, a new business for its owner Halil Pekdemir and the 20 MW Nezihe Beren geothermal power plant of Maren.

Emirler - The Pekdemir business is in the agriculture market, growing and distributing agriculture products to supermarkets. They also own their own chain. They are a big agriculture landowner around the Denizli area.
Several years ago, Mr. Pekdemir found geothermal resource in his land. First, he used it to heat and cultivate some of his greenhouse. But with the discovery of a stronger resource in Emirler, we met and worked on a program to develop it for electricity generation too.
On Dec 6th ,2019 we sign the first unit, Emirler JES 1, in a capacity of 3.5 MW.
We are very proud that with the full support of Pekdemir team, headed by Sinan Akbay, we succeeded to deliver and install the first unit in a record time of less than 11 months.
Now we are planning the continuation- Emirler JES 2 and other areas in the future.

Nezihe Beren - Yet another geothermal power plant of Maren, one of Kipas Holding companies. Maren signed their first geothermal plant in Germencik area (Irem) with Ormat on Feb 11, 2010.
Nezihe Beren was signed on June 20, 2019 for 20 MW gross capacity. It is Maren’s 7th power plant, and with ken 1& 3 and Kiper 1, Kipas hold 10 power plant in total rated gross capacity of 220 MW.
With this power plant, the number of Ormat technology based operating powerplants in Turkey reaches 40, and 3 under construction.

Emirler, Pekdemir, Turkey, 3.5 MW

Emirler, Pekdemir, Turkey, 3.5 MW

With travel and safety restrictions limiting our geothermal facility tours this year, our business development and marketing teams have come up with a creative solution to show off our newest facility! Check out the 360-degree video of our newest geothermal facility, Steamboat Hills, below. With 360-degree video technology, you can pause the video, move the screen, or tilt your phone to view the plant from any perspective you want. Give it a test drive on your laptop, phone, or tablet device to see geothermal as you’ve never seen it before. (Recommended browser is Chrome, recommended setting of 1080p.)

The Steamboat Hills complex is located in Washoe County, Nevada and is part of the Steamboat Complex that is comprised of six power plants utilizing binary systems with both air and water cooling. The generating capacity of the complex is 84 MW, with the first plant reaching commercial operation in 1992, and the most recent plant reaching commercial operation in June of 2020.

We are proud to release for commercial implementation, our recent registered patent for WIND GUIDING VANES

For couple of years Ormat studied the wind flow production effect on its Don A Campbell geothermal complex and confirmed the theoretically known major effect on Air Cooled Condensers thermal performance. Ormat managed to recover 2000 MWh to the yearly production using its recently patented  Wind Guiding Vanes (WGV), developed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis and optimization process.

Following the promising results, Ormat now offers the WGV to its worldwide clients.

Wind has a major effect on Air Cooled Condensers thermal performance, thus, on geothermal plants power generation. To regain plant generation during winds, wind effect analysis was performed in Don A Campbell, an Ormat geothermal power plant in Nevada. Field tests were executed on small scale system, including fan flowrate measurements and smoke tests. Results showed a significant performance improvement with the WGV system equipped bays in windy conditions.

Rankine cycle condenser thermal performance determines the turbine back pressure, thus has direct impact on power plant generation, especially in low enthalpy (geothermal heat resource) Organic Rankine Cycle application. Following the promising results, full scale solution was implemented in Don A Campbell and is now a commercial patented solution.

AFTER:                                                           BEFORE:
  

Early this year, Ormat published a Technical paper reviewing the wind effect mitigation methods for air cooled condensers, fundamental analysis of the problem and Ormat designed solution.

Read the complete description, tests and results in the article.

Don A. Campbell Complex, NV, USA, 36 MW