(The Sacramento Bee - Press Release)
Alterra Power Corp. today provided an update on its operations and reported its financial and operating results for the six month fiscal period ended December 31, 2011.
- An operating permit was granted for the planned 80 MW expansions at the Reykjanes geothermal power plant in Iceland.
- The 100 MW Reykjanes plant generated 380,834 MWh of electricity, 99% of budget, and the 72 MW Svartsengi plant generated 228,618 MWh of electricity, 98% of budget, and continued to supply 150 MW of thermal energy for district heating.
- In early 2012, the capacity of the Svartsengi plant was revised from 74.4 MW to 72.0 MW with the retirement of two 1.2 MW air-cooled binary turbine generators. This has no impact on plant energy output as the geothermal resource has been redirected to other turbines at Svartsengi, and the retirement reduces both maintenance and capital replacement costs.
- The 16 MW capacity Soda Lake geothermal plant generated a net 33,664 MWh of electricity for the period, which was 93% of forecast. Subsequent to the period, the US Department of the Treasury awarded the project a grant of $2.1 million under Section 1603 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Tax Act of 2009.
- Alterra's Icelandic subsidiary HS Orka plans to expand the Reykjanes plant's capacity to 180 MW in two phases of 50 MW and 30 MW and thereby increase annual average generation by nearly 700,000 MWh, subject to satisfactory resolution of all PPA issues and obtaining project financing. During the period, HS Orka received the operating permit required for the drilling of additional wells and other work necessary for the 50 MW expansion. The 30 MW expansion will not require any additional drilling as the utilized resource will be low pressure steam generated from current operations.
- New geothermal concessions were acquired in the Upper Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia, and in southern Peru near Alterra's existing concessions. Certain less-promising concessions in Nevada were relinquished, and other concessions were sold. At the advanced-stage Mariposa project in Chile, the Company is actively reviewing a number of options for the next phase of exploration in 2012, including entering into a partnership to fund the remaining exploration and development costs.