During 2012, the Company's management and operating teams were focused on improving operations at Raft River, Idaho and advancing both the San Emidio, Nevada and Neal Hot Springs, Oregon projects into commercial operations. Commercial operations were successfully achieved at San Emidio in May 2012 and at Neal Hot Springs in November 2012.
Both development projects experienced construction delays due to the innovative use of existing technology in a novel configuration. These innovations have successfully produced the geothermal power industry's first commercial, supercritical organic rankine cycle binary power plant using R134a as a motive fluid. R134a is a non flammable, non toxic compound used in the power cycle.
The two projects have successfully moved non-commercial, significantly enhanced technology to commercial viability and are now generating electricity. The performance tests of the innovative plants showed that they produce significantly more electrical power than originally forecast. Due primarily to the colder winter temperatures, current total output of net base load power to our customers recently was 49 MWe with San Emidio at 9.4 MWe, Neal Hot Springs at 29.7 MWe and Raft River at 9.9 MWe.
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