By the end of 2011, the country expects to be have 1.114 MW of capacity from hydroelectric power, thereby meeting 90% of its current demand.
Seven new hydroelectric plants costing over $1 billion are in the final stages of construction and will begin operating before the end of the year, according to official sources.
Panama's current grid already has 682 MW of power available from hydroelectric generators at La Fortuna, Bayano, La Estrella, Los Valles, Macano, Concepción and Paso Ancho.
GDF Suez Energy’s $140 million coal reconversion energy plant would start operating by the end of June.
The project will generate energy using coal imported from Colombia. The raw material will be unloaded at the storage facilities of “Cemento Panamá”, in the port of Bahía las Minas, close to the plant.
Most of the concessions to build hydroelectric power plants in the rivers of Chiriquí were granted without paying fees, for 50 years.
Sometime later, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim entered the hydroelectricity market in Panama, offering almost $32 million for two of these concessions. This triggered a “hydroelectric fever”, with the creation of a secondary market between concessionaries and interested businessmen. In those private transactions the state didn’t earn a single cent.
Inmet Mining, owner of the copper mining project "Panama Cobre" plans to complete construction in 2014.
Environmental studies would be ready in the first quarter of 2010, and detailed engineering would begin mid-2010.
According to MiningWeekly.com, "The company has completed a drilling programme on the project, and is compiling the data it will need for mineral resource and reserve statements", which Inmet estimates at 150.000 t/d throughput rate for 30 years.
The Government expects to invite bids for the construction of a coal power plant in 2010.
It would generate 300 megawatts, and could be operational in 2014.
Wilfredo Jordán wrote for Prensa.com: "The State could do the investment, and state-owned company Egesa could operate it, or it could be done under a concession model".
The 15 hydroelectric projects currently under construction in Panama have a value of $1.35 billion, and they will increase the installed capacity by 600 kilowatts.
As reported by the Authority of Public Services (ASEP), the majority of the projects are being developed in Chiriquí and Bocas del Toro, on rivers with large flow.
Suez Energy aims to invest US$650 million in various power-generation projects that should come on stream by 2010.
The projects includes the conversion to coal of the Bahía Las Minas thermal plant, and construction of a 25-megawatt hydroelectric scheme at Gualaca, Chiriquí.
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