A wholly-owned subsidiary of Ormat Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: ORA) has signed a 20-years Recovered Energy Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Highline Electric Association, a consumer-owned cooperative serving load in Colorado and Nebraska, for the sale of electricity generated from a 4MW ORMAT® Recovered Energy Generation (REG) power plant to be constructed along a Natural Gas compression station near Denver, Colorado.
The facility will convert waste heat from the exhaust of existing gas turbines into clean energy, and is expected to be commissioned in mid-2009. Ormat will own and operate this facility through the term of the PPA.
Ormat has secured the rights to use the waste heat under a Waste Heat Host Agreement with Trailblazer Pipeline Company, which owned by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners. Trailblazer Pipeline Company owns and operates the gas compression station where the new facility will be built. Trailblazer owns 436 miles of natural gas pipelines that traverse from Colorado through southeastern Wyoming into Nebraska. The energy produced from the REG plant will contribute to Highline’s Renewable Portfolio Standards requirement, in accordance with the legislations in Colorado.
Mark Farnsworth, General Manager of Highline, said, “Highline is excited to be partnering with Ormat Technologies in this groundbreaking project to develop renewable energy in Colorado. This project will benefit our member- owners as a reliable and clean source of power, as well as set a new standard for the development of renewable energy in Colorado.”
Lucien Y. Bronicki, Chairman of the Board and Chief Technology Officer of Ormat Technologies, said, “This agreement is the 7th power purchase agreement that Ormat signed for the sale of electricity from REG power plants, offering further validation of recovered energy as one of Ormat’s growth engines. The Ormat line of REG systems responds to two objectives that are high on the energy policy agenda: energy efficiency and emission reduction. We are very pleased with our progress on this area and remain confident about Ormat’s prospects in the recovered energy arena going forward and maintaining our leadership in Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) technology.”
The ORMAT® REG facilities consist of ORMAT® Energy Converters (OEC) based on Organic Rankine Cycle technology, which convert recovered heat to electric power without the need for any additional fuel or water. The OEC units are environmentally benign as they have no emissions of CO2 or NOX.
Several similar ORMAT® REG plants have been operating successfully — one on a TransCanada pipeline compressor station that has been in operation for more than seven years and a second ORMAT® REG plant that has been operating inside an Enterprise Products gas processing plant for more than three years.
Recent installations include one on the Alliance Gas Pipeline in Canada that has been in operation since early 2007 and, another set of four projects on the Northern Border Gas Pipeline that began operation in mid-2007.
Ormat also has orders for the supply of equipment for two REG projects that will be located in British Columbia, Canada, and currently has under construction three REG projects in Saskatchewan, Canada, and additional plants that it will own and operate on the Northern Border Pipeline selling their output to Basin Electric.
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