AMEC to design geothermal plant drawing heat from deep below the earth

AMEC has been awarded a US$6.8 million contract by EnergySource LLC, to provide engineering services for a 49-megawatt, $350 million geothermal power generating facility at Salton Sea, California.
The geothermal power plant will produce electricity from naturally occurring geothermal steam stored in superheated water reservoirs thousands of feet beneath the earth’s surface.
The Hudson Ranch I project, located in Imperial County, is the first stand-alone flash geothermal plant to be built at the Salton Sea geothermal site in recent years. Work on the project has begun and is expected to be complete by 2012. AMEC will be responsible for design, engineering, training and assistance during the construction and start-up phase.
The facility will be a triple-flash plant using high-temperature Crystallizer Reactor Clarifier (CRC) technology to process the geothermal brine and steam from the Salton Sea production wells. The plant will include a turbine-generator, cooling tower, wellhead separators, crystallizer, water tanks, primary and secondary clarifier tanks, control building, office buildings, substation, pipelines and supports, various ancillary structures and associated internal roadways.
“This project is one of a new generation of high-temperature flash technology geothermal plants and another great addition to AMEC’s portfolio of sustainable energy projects,” said Tim Gelbar, President of AMEC’s Power & Process Americas business. “
The plant will take 21 months to build and will provide poer to Salt River Project (SRP), a major southwestern utility in the Phoenix area.