Reno, NV-based Ormat Technologies Inc. signed a 20-year deal with cooperative utility Highline Electric Association to provide it with 4 MW of power produced from recovered heat from a natural gas pipeline, the company said Monday. Highline serves customers in Colorado and Nebraska.

The supplies will come from Ormat’s recovered heat generation (RHG) power plant, which it plans to build alongside a compression station near Denver on the Trailblazer Pipeline owned by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners. The power generation unit will convert waste heat from the exhaust of the existing gas turbines to “clean energy” starting in mid-2009.

Ormat has a waste heat host agreement with Trailblazer, the owner/operator of the compression station where the alternative power supplier will build its new facility. Trailblazer Pipeline Co. owns 436 miles of gas pipelines traversing part of Colorado, southeastern Wyoming and into Nebraska.

Highline will use the power to contribute to its renewable portfolio standards target set by a new Colorado law. Highline General Manager Mark Farnsworth called the Ormat deal a “groundbreaking project” for the development of renewables in Colorado. “This project will benefit our member-owners as a reliable and clean source of power, as well as set a new standard for development of renewable energy in Colorado.”

Ormat said this latest agreement is the seventh one it has signed for supplies from RHG units. “The Ormat line of RHG systems responds to two objectives that are high on the energy policy agenda — energy efficiency and emission reduction,” said Chairman Lucien Bronicki.

“We are very pleased with our progress in this area and remain confident about Ormat’s prospects in the recovered energy arena going forward and maintaining our leadership in Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) technology.”

Ormat’s RHG installations in operation, construction or development include projects on Alliance Pipeline in Canada and Northern Border Pipeline. Both of these Ormat projects began operating earlier this year. Two RHG projects will be located in British Columbia, and three are under construction in Saskatchewan.

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