Water, electricity conservation driving engineering services demand in Argentina

Interest in energy and water efficiency solutions is growing in Argentina in line with a global trend and amid a brightening of the country’s overall project development outlook, BNamericas was told.

Drivers are not only environmental considerations but also financial, given lower consumption trims production costs and, in some cases, frees up power for sale to the grid.

“Today, the trend, in Argentina but also across the world, is one of reducing water and energy consumption and atmospheric emissions,” said Franklin Canales, project manager at the Chilean office of Swedish consulting firm Afry, which also serves the Argentine market.

Afry engineers recently helped Argentine paper plant Papel Misionero – part of local food manufacturer and exporter Grupo Arcor – identify ways to increase energy and water consumption efficiency.

Investment in the Misiones province plant is expected to begin next year with water consumption-reduction measures. This should cut effluent discharge into the Paraná river, improving the plant's environmental performance and reducing the demand for electricity produced by the company, which has installed capacity of 20MW. In turn, this will allow the sale of a greater proportion of power to the grid. Papel Misionero produces brown, or unbleached, paper for food packaging and bags.

Canales added that demand for such efficiency services was being seen across the productive sector in general in Argentina.

“Today, mining, pulp, paper, food and beverage, they’re all in the same boat, looking to reduce consumption of water and energy,” he said.

The overall economic picture in Argentina is brightening and investor sentiment has improved in recent months. Inflation is trending down amid a push to balance the books. Risks remain, however, one in the form of an overvalued peso that is eroding the country’s external competitiveness. 

“Things were quite stagnant in recent years; today you can see some brightening in terms of investment,” Canales said, adding that a partial easing of capital controls has helped whet investor appetites.

An uptick in activity is being observed in projects in general, not just in efficiency aspects.

“We’ve been producing more proposals for clients in Argentina; you see a trend of improvement in almost all the sectors where we work.”

Drivers also include the mining, pulp and paper and food and beverage industries.

Headquartered in Stockholm and with an international presence, Afry offers services spanning the areas of strategy, technical consulting, design and engineering, project management and operations.