MP: Geothermal power in ENB vital

Islands, Normal
Source:

The National, Tuesday 02nd April, 2013

By ELIZABETH VUVU
THE potential of geothermal power generation in East New Britain is significant and abundant, Pomio MP Paul Tiensten says.
He said that geothermal power generation should be supported by all stakeholders, including landowners, to enable the province to address the low electricity capacity from both hydro and diesel energy generation sources against an increasing demand.
Tiensten said this last week in response to questions by The National on geothermal energy as an alternative source of power for East New Britain and PNG.
“The constant disruption or power blackout is not good for the province’s economy and its future growth,” he said.
He said when the province embarks on downstream processing in the future manufacturing industries and other tertiary institutions need to harness its geothermal power potential to be able to meet this prospect.
“However, all these industries will not come to our province if there is no reliable power supply on the ground and if we cannot produce electricity at low cost,” Tiensten said.
“Because of this, we should now start exploring and developing the geothermal power source as a cheaper power option and simultaneously run an investment strategy to attract potential investors to invest in the province.”
He said cheap, reliable sources of energy such as geothermal and other renewable sources of energy were the way forward for the province and country.
Tiensten said the government had been conducting feasibility studies with the private sector for geothermal power companies to establish geothermal power plants in many parts of PNG, including East
New Britain.
“However, this source of energy has to be regulated by a comprehensive policy and a legislative framework so that PNG maximises its revenues especially taxes and royalties as it is an extractive industry and such fiscal regime should be negotiated and applied just like in mining projects.”
Tiensten said to date, Lihir Gold Mine was the only mine that had been generating geothermal power for its operations and its own consumption and it had huge savings as geothermal power replaced diesel generation and was a cheaper source of energy.
“It is also benefiting from the clean development mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol,” he said.
“However, the people of PNG or the government have not got any revenue from Lihir mine in relation to the extraction of geothermal power from the mine site.”