With prices as low as $0.010 per KW / h, 27 foreign and Panamanian companies submitted bids to supply 350 MW of power generated from bunker fuel, propane and methane, from 2018.
The bidders chosen by Empresa de Transmisión de Energía Eléctrica (Etesa) will have a period of 30 months to build plants and start generating and supplying electricity from March 2018.
The conversion to biofuel is feasible in agribusinesses who have their own waste production the raw material needed to generate it.
The return on investment calculation of $9 million in less than four years was a deciding factor in the Cooperativa Agroindustrial de Productores de Palma Aceitera (Coopeagropal) introducing a clean energy program.
"The biggest investment is the installation of a giant digester using German technology, in which the organic matter from the plant wastewater is processed."
An announcement has been made for a plant in Cerro Patacón landfill to generate electricity using the methane gas emanating from the garbage.
The company Urbalia SA announced the construction of a plant to produce energy from the 2,200 tons of garbage entering the landfill at Cerro Patacón every day. The plant would have the capacity to generate 10 megawatts of electricity.
A provisional license has been granted to Urbalia Panamá S.A. for the construction and operation of a power generation plant in Cerro Patacón, using methane gas and solid waste disposal.
From information published by the National Authority of Public Services (ASEP) of Panama:
"By which provisional license is granted to the company Urbalia PANAMA, SA, for the construction and operation of a plant for generating electricity using methane gas and solid waste disposal called Cerro Patacón".
A municipal ordinance in La Union prohibits power plants based on coal or gas meaning that AES will be unable to take part in the tender for 350 MW.
The power generator AES Fonseca will not participate in the bidding for 350 MW for a period of 16 years scheduled for Monday, March 19th due to an ordinance of La Union, which prohibits the construction of power plants based on coal and gas.
Having required an investment of $58 million, the first power plant fueled by methane gas in Central America has begun operations.
The plant, which uses gases from the Mides landfill as its main raw material, has an initial average generation capacity of 6MW.
"The landfill handles more than six million tons of solid waste, and the AES plant has installed 3000 meters of piping to extract the gases from garbage,” reads an article on Elmundo.com.sv.
Implemented by company "Industrias de Biogás", the project will potentially generate 4 Megawatts.
Developed at a landfill in Zone 3 of Guatemala City, 120 wells will extract Methane from the landfill in order to produce the electricity.
"The landfill in Zone 3 receives about two thousand tons of garbage a day, and what is expected is for this project to produce an average of 70 thousand tons of carbon dioxide per year during the period 2012-2016,” reported Prensalibre.com.
The State refiner awarded the Felguera group the construction of the new infrastructure for storing liquefied gas.
I.H.S.A. Felguera Spain won the tender and will be responsible for the design, purchase of materials and construction of six storage facilities of 250 m3 each.
The project will cost a total of $ 10,481,266.00 and will start construction in July of this year for completion in October 2012.
AES will develop the country’s first methane gas power plant.
Works are scheduled to begin on July 7, starting operations on early 2011.
Luis Pérez, manager of the project AES Nejapa, told Elsalvador.com that “this is a modest plant, which will initially generate 6MW, but has enough technical capacity to eventually output 24MW”.
AES expects to increase the plant’s production in two MW every two or three years, depending on how much solid waste is accumulated in the landfill.
With the new plant, the country will double its storage capacity for liquefied petroleum gas.
Gabriela Montes de Oca is the head of this project in Recope, the state owned energy company. She assures the plant will save the country $8 million in freightage costs.
"... the project will be financed by the Central American Economic Integration Bank, through a trust...
Carbon Trade, a British company, aims to produce enough electricity to supply 600 homes from the methane produced by a trash dump in Guatemala.
Christian Siliézar, Carbon Trade's manager for Latin America, said the company had been granted a 25-year concession to use gas from the Las Periqueras dump on the Pacific Coast to generate about one megawatt of power.