Bottle Rock Geothermal Power Plant Resurrected after 16-Year Shutdown

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Bottle Rock Power, LLC (Santa Rosa, California) is being resurrected from a shutdown that was caused by a lack of steam to efficiently operate at 27.3% of the 55-megawatt (MW) capacity. Owner and operator, California Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, California), originally submitted for a license for the power plant in 1979 and was approved in 1980, with commercial operation following in February 1985. The plant was shut down in November 1990. In 2005, US Renewables Corporation (Santa Monica, California) acquired the controlling interest in the plant and started refurbishment. US Renewables sold a significant stake of its interest to Carlyle/Riverstone Renewable Energy Infrastructure Fund (New York, New York).

Bottle Rock Geothermal is a dry steam facility, meaning it takes the steam directly from the ground and uses it to drive the 55 MW Fuji steam turbine/generator. The system has an Ecol-Aire condenser system, a five-cell counter-flow cooling tower and a Stretford system for hydrogen sulfide (H2S) abatement and a developed steam field. Bottle Rock Power will operate the plant and the steam field with a staff of about eighteen.

The cost of acquiring and repowering of the Bottle Rock plant will be about $30 million. There are eleven minor changes that Bottle Rock Power will need to perform in order to meet the requirements of the California Energy Commission. Install vacuum pumps in the condenser versus reliance upon steam injectors. Install a distributive control system for the plant. Add a new skim line in the Stretford H2S abatement system. Add a mercury vapor filter upstream of the abatement system. Add air spargers to the oxidizer tanks in the abatement system. Change the operation and design of the secondary abatement system. Add a second main steam line isolation valve. Install a variable-speed, automating steam-staking system. Install a new design in the steam washing system. Add a steam sampling point downstream of the Burgess Manning main steam separator. Install exterior lighting abatement improvements. And in addition, Bottle Rock intends to augment existing wells and obtain more leases for additional wells to increase output closer to the turbine/generator’s capacity.

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