A drill rig towers above a well site at the Berlín geothermal area. The first exploratory well at Berlín was drilled in 1966 by the government of El Salvador, with assistance from the United Nations. Feasibility studies in the early 1980s were halted by the civil war, and production testing of wells was not completed until 1987. The first two 5 MW power plants came on line in 1992, and 25 MW wells at the Berlín 2 site went into operation in 1998 and 1999.

Photo courtesy of Comisión Ejecutiva Hidroeléctricia del Río Lempa (CEL).

This image is made available under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license terms.

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