May 1 2008
Ormat Technologies, Inc. and Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. announced today that the two companies entered into an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) agreement to build a 5.3 MW recovered energy generation facility to be located on the Northern Border Pipeline Company's (Northern Border) compressor station in Morton County, North Dakota. The facility, which is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2009, will produce electricity without burning additional fuel.
The project, subject to regulatory approvals, will increase the utilization of the energy content by approximately 25 percent and will produce enough renewable energy to supply about 5,000 residential electric customers in Montana-Dakota's service territory. Recovered Energy Generation (REG) facilities consist of ORMAT Energy Converters (OEC) based on Organic Rankine Cycle technology, which convert recovered heat to electric power without the need for any additional fuel or water.
"Ormat REG systems respond to two essential objectives in environmental conservation: energy efficiency and emission reduction," said Dita Bronicki, Chief Executive Officer of Ormat. "As the 10th Ormat REG facility installation planned on Northern Border's facilities, this project with Montana-Dakota Utilities is a testimony to the energy production capabilities of Ormat's Organic Rankine Cycle technology and highlights our continued progress in this area."
"We are excited to be a part of this project and to increase our electric generation capacity with this technology," said Andrea Stomberg, Vice President of electric supply for Montana-Dakota. "It is important to us to expand our green energy efforts."
In the normal operation of a compressor station, waste heat is released by the exhaust of the gas turbine driving the compressor used to compress the gas. This thermal energy can be captured and converted to electricity by the installation of an Ormat Energy Converter similar to those used in geothermal electricity generation. The project will use a heat exchanger to capture the heat from the existing gas turbine and the recovered heat is used in the OEC to produce the electrical output.