New Zealand:

Repairs Needed for Nga Awa Purua Geothermal Power Station Turbine Blades (New Zealand Herald)

HP, IP and LP Steam Separators at the Nga Awa Purua Geothermal Power Station, Taupo, New Zealand by Alan Ofsoski, Mighty River Power

MightyRiverPower (MRP) is shutting down its largest geothermal power station, the 140 MWe Nga Awa Purua installation, to perform temporary repairs after finding geothermal fluids have damaged the three-year-old unit.

Commissioned in 2010, Nga Awa Purua is the largest of MRP's five geothermal power stations, representing close to 30 percent of its 469 MWe of rated output from steamfields in the central North Island.

The one to two week outage follows modifications to allow ongoing operation, which has reduced output at the plant to around 95 percent of normal capacity.

Geothermal fluids contain a mixture of caustic chemicals, which can corrode or cause build-up on turbine blades which are directly exposed to them.

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