Initial Chemical and Reservoir Conditions at Los Azufres Wellhead Power Plant Startup

One of the major concerns of electric utilities in installing geothermal power plants is not only the longevity of the steam supply, but also the potential for changes in thermodynamic properties of the resource that might reduce the conversion efficiency of the design plant equipment. Production was initiated at Los Azufres geothermal field with wellhead generators not only to obtain electric energy at a relatively early date, but also to acquire needed information about the resource so that plans for large central power plants could be finalized. Commerical electric energy production started at Los Azufres during the summer of 1982 with five 5-EMe wellhead turbine-generator units. The wells associated with these units had undergone extensive testing and have since been essentially in constant production.