Fault takes out Nevada geothermal power plant

Nevada Geothermal Power is investigating a “ground fault” that has seen its flagship Faulkner 1 geothermal power plant shut down earlier this month.

The company reported today that the plant in Blue Mountain, northern Nevada, shut down automatically on January 17.

It will remain offline while an inspection of the electrical system and underground cables is carried out, the company said.

NGP staff and the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contractor are currently on-site performing a physical inspection to assess the cause. The power plant, including electrical controls, is covered by the warranty provided under the EPC contract.

“Prior to this event, NGP experienced continuous, smooth operations since opening the Faulkner 1 facility just three months ago,” commented Brian Fairbank, President and CEO of Nevada Geothermal Power.

“We’ve notified all parties affected by the outage including the firm that designed and constructed the plant. Our goal is to identify and remedy the problem expeditiously and resume operations at the Faulkner 1 facility.”

Steam escape

Separately to this incident, Nevada Geothermal revealed that the facility suffered an unexpected escape of steam and hot water at one of its unused production wells.

The well had been drilled and was being fitted with protective liner when the rock moved, leading to an “uncontrolled flow” of geothermal fluid and steam at the surface.

The company insisted its well had been brought under control with specialized equipment, and that the lining work was now continuing. It added that there had been no injuries to personnel or damage to equipment.

Federal and state authorities have been notified according to standard protocols. NGP is conducting a thorough review of the incident in order to ensure safe well operations.

“Although this has been a challenging week for all concerned, we are grateful that no one was injured during this incident. I am very pleased at the way our team and contractors worked together under difficult circumstances to bring the well’s flow under control,” Mr Fairbank said.

NGP’s drilling program at Blue Mountain continues unaffected by the plant outage. The drilling program is aimed at raising production levels to 47 MW net.