San Jacinto Tizate Geothermal Power Plant

Geothermal power station in Nicaragua

Planta Geotérmica San Jacinto Tizate or San Jacinto Tizate Geothermal Power Plant is a geothermal power plant in Nicaragua.

It has a nameplate capacity of 72 Megawatts electric power. The plant was upgraded from 10 Megawatts of capacity by Polaris Energy Nicaragua S.A. who continue to run the plant as of 2020.[1] As of 2020 it is one of two geothermal power plants in the country, the other being a 78 Megawatt station near Momotombo.[2] Sitting on the Pacific Ring of Fire and nicknaming itself "país de lagos y volcanes", Nicaragua has a large geothermal energy potential but in 2020 only 153.24 MW of the nominal installed capacity of 1619.73 MW were geothermal (a bit under 9.5%)[3] in terms of net capacity, the figure is 93.21 MW out of 1,329.42 MW or just over 7%.

However, due to the high capacity factor and the ability to provide baseload power, geothermal power provided 17.13% of net electricity generation in 2019.[4] In absolute figures, geothermal power provided 703.10 Gigawatt-hours in 2019 compared to an overall electricity production of 4105.48 Gigawatt-hours.

Expansion

In 2021 the CEO of Polaris Infrastructure, the owners of the plant, announced a further expansion of the plant by an additional binary cycle plant with an electric capacity of 7-10 Megawatts electrical power.[5][6]

Criticism

The opposition aligned newspaper La Prensa has criticized the Daniel Ortega government's decision to invest in geothermal energy on cost grounds.[7][8]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Central Geotérmica San Jacinto – Tizate – Pensa".
  2. ^ "Capturando el potencial geotérmico en América Latina y el Caribe: Una perspectiva del camino a seguir | Publications" (PDF).
  3. ^ https://www.ine.gob.ni/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/capacidad_instalada_serie_2010-2020_actjul21.pdf [bare URL PDF]
  4. ^ https://www.ine.gob.ni/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/generacion_neta_serie_2010-2020_actjul21.pdf [bare URL PDF]
  5. ^ "Polaris Infrastructure to expand San Jacinto geothermal plant, Nicaragua". 9 March 2021.
  6. ^ "Polaris Infrastructure's (RAMPF) CEO Marc Murnaghan on Q4 2020 Results - Earnings Call Transcript | Seeking Alpha". 4 March 2021.
  7. ^ "Nicaragua ha invertido en geotermia a pesar de su costo". 22 August 2016.
  8. ^ "Nicaragua invertirá en proyectos de exploración de energía geotérmica". 9 November 2017.