Economic Planning and Design of Geothermal Electric Generation in El Salvador

Abstract

Economic factors are the guiding for the development program in El Salvador. The program includes the rehahilitation of the 95 Ahuachapan power plant. the installation of MW at Berlin and the study for additional units at San Vicente. The accurate planning of the field-power plant system development. comhined with a design aimed at high efficiency, improve the economic competitiveness of geothermal gencration. in spite of the The Ahuachapan study proved technical and economical feasihility of the of the field production and rehabilitation of plant efficiency, up saturating the 95 MW total capacity of the three units The cosrihenefit ratio of the proposed interventions is particularly favourahle due to the of amortized installed capacity, presently The Berlin field has 50 proven and capacity. study showed that the optimum exploitation strategy involves the installation of 25 modular units. Flexible design is a determining factor success. to he through the analysis of the unit performances during the field evolution. The optimum unit operation pressure is defined hy design conditions "Maximum "Nominal and "Maximum Capacity".