Puna Geothermal Venture (PGV) is continuing its work toward recovery, plant officials said during a community meeting Wednesday afternoon in Pahoa.
Although recovery is ongoing, plant manager Jordan Hara told the small crowd gathered Wednesday PGV still has “a lot of work to do.”
When it comes to the plant’s equipment, “we’re going pretty good, getting a lot of equipment fixed up, repaired or replaced.”
PGV is currently cleaning out one of its production wells, Hara said, and after that, “we’re in debate of which route we want to go, whether we … drill a new well, or potentially work on another (existing) well, cleaning it out.”
Mike Kaleikini, PGV’s senior director of Hawaii, said after Wednesday’s meeting that PGV still aims to be operational by year-end.
Hara said after the meeting that under ideal circumstances, PGV “would like to at least try to run and test our equipment” by the end of the year. “Now, actually selling power to the grid, (that is) not likely until we have our substation, which is next year. So, we’re shooting to at least start up and run some equipment and make sure everything’s good and test everything … .”