AES El Salvador and Corporación Multi Inversiones have announced an investment plan that includes the construction of ten solar plants with capacity to generate 10 MW each in different areas around the country.
The solar power generation project will be operated by AES El Salvador, and is expected to be developed in three phases, according to the two companies involved in the initiative.
For the tender of 310 MW, awards were granted to six generators in El Salvador, for a term of four years.
All of the proposals submitted were below the $186.39, price ceiling set by the Superintendency of Electricity and Telecommunications (Siget). According to the chief of the Siget, Luis Mendez, the total amount transacted is approximately $1 billion.
The process was unable to be completed after the withdrawal of offers from firms with capacity to generate electricity required.
The company DelSur on Monday declared void the tender for the generation of 350 MW, equivalent to one third of the El Salvador’s national demand, which it had planned to contract out for 15 years from 2016.
For this process, 11 companies received the documentation for participation, including geothermal companies.
This is the sum that the distributors intend to invest in improving service delivery in 2012, which includes the construction of two new substations.
The AES in El Salvador invested a total of $26.3 million in 2011 on improving the quality of electricity service, and this year, plans to invest about $24 million, including making two new substations.
The company announced that in 2016 the proposed power plant in La Union, El Salvador, would come into operation, but as yet has not indicated the sources of funding or the name of the construction company.
Sources at the Salvadoran National Energy Board told CentralAmericaData.COM that Cutuco Energy Central America has obtained some of the necessary permits for the project, but not all of them, and still does not know where financing will come from. It also noted that the company AES, a global corporation already involved in the country's energy sector, has a similar project planned for installation also in La Union, and that the existence of both projects, involving an investment of about $1000 million each one, does not seem viable.
The construction of a coal-based power generation plant, which was scheduled to open early this year, could be delayed further.
The plant is located on land near La Unión Port and runs the risk of not even being built, depending on the outcome of the tender.
Daniel Choto wrote in an article in Elsalvador.com: "It all depends on the outcome of an international tender that energy distributors have published in order to purchase 320 Mega Watts of power in the form of long-term contracts, said the chairperson of AES Group. It all depends, he said, on the outcome of the tender. If the group’s company that would be bidding wins, construction would have to begin immediately, once the pending municipal permits are obtained, he said."