Detailed Resource Assessment of Selected Low-Enthalpy Geothermal Areas in the Philippines

Abstract

Most of the country’s high enthalpy geothermal resource have already been developed into commercial operations, making the Philippines second in largest power producer of geothermal energy in the world. To further diversify the country’s geothermal energy development, the Department of Energy (DOE) is currently implementing a locally-funded project “Detailed Resource Assessment of Selected-Low-Enthalpy Geothermal Areas in the Philippines” since January 2011 up to December 2014. The main objective of the project is the further exploration of low-enthalpy geothermal areas that might be applicable for power generation especially in the remote areas hosting the resource. Integrated geoscientific surveys have already been completed in the three islands based geothermal prospects. Results of the studies revealed that the Balut Island geothermal prospect is an intermediate enthalpy resource with an estimated reservoir temperature ranging from 175C to 200C and potential capacity of around 6-14 MWe, while no exploitable geothermal resource has been delineated at the Banton Island geothermal prospect. The Maricaban Island geothermal prospect on the other hand has been found to host a reservoir at a most likely temperature of 150C temperature. It is on this premise that the drilling of 2 thermal gradient wells has been decided on Maricaban Island geothermal prospect to commence on the 3rd quarter of 2014. The success of the project will pave the way for the exploration and development of the other low-enthalpy geothermal resources in the country.