The UGM team has successfully brought awards home as the first winner in the National Geothermal Development Plan competition at the Integrated Petroleum Festival (IPFEST) last 25 February in ITB. The Geomech team consists of M. Fahran Fauzan (Engineering Geology 2017), Melchior Raka D. (Engineering Geology 2018), Vincentius Adven B. (Mechanical Engineering 2019), dan Wisnu Arif B. (Mechanical Engineering 2019). They have successfully exceeded the other 24 teams from ITB, ITS, Undip, and Unpad.
Vincentius Adven B, in his press conference, revealed that their team must conduct a feasibility study of the Ulumbu Geothermal Power Plant (PLTP) expansion project, Flores Unit 5-6 (2×20 MW).
“The competition was initiated from the Ulumbu PLTP expansion project as a real project owned by PLN,” he said.
Suppose this project is feasible to be executed. In that case, each team should design the project development plan starting from geology interpretation, drilling strategies, design of power plants and steam gathering, and evaluating project economics using parameters of NPV, IRR, BEP, and Benefit-to-Cost Ratio.
“Our plan is able to help in providing input and breakthroughs, precisely for PLN in developing this project, and in general for the development of geothermal energy in Eastern Indonesia,” he said.
Later, their team will soon proceed with this concept developed into a real project plan using a combination of literature study, manual calculation, and numerical simulation using the software. “We hope our innovation can be later implemented in the field after we graduate and proceed to the geothermal industry,” he added.
Vincentius also added that even though this concept has no expenditure, they still need to provide data and project design in a month.
“The limited data given by the event committee challenges us in building several assumptions. Still, it should be provided with make sense arguments. Besides, pandemic conditions have hindered us from meeting face to face,” Vincentius said.
Luckily, at the first stage, they have successfully passed the essay competition. Eight teams passed the final stage to present their online geothermal project planning design concepts. “We did not expect anything at all. Even we did not expect to outdo the superior team from ITB itself which has Petrolueum Engineering Major. Moreover, other team members are considered more senior because they were mostly dominated by the 2018 and 2017 batches,” he concluded.
Author: Gusti Grehenson
Translator: Natasa