CELEC EP seeks to partner with the national industry for the development of new electricity self-generation projects

This Celec release was published using machine translation.

The Electricity Corporation of Ecuador (CELEC EP) seeks to partner with the industrial and productive sector of the country for the development of new generation projects. This new form of association with the private sector is called "self-generating companies" and was presented this Wednesday, August 9, by the General Manager of CELEC EP, Gonzalo Uquillas Vallejo, to a hundred delegates from interested private companies.

This associative model between the public and private sectors offers greater flexibility and confidence to potential investors to develop new self-generation projects. In addition, CELEC EP will find strategic partners to meet the energy demand of the basic industries of the productive sector in the short term, which will allow them to improve their competitiveness.

"We have planned a USD 650 million investment in transmission, to improve electrical attention." "There is an unregulated demand, industrial demand, which corresponds to mining concessions and requires about 5,000 new megawatts in the coming years."

For this reason, he said, “it is essential to identify new business models that allow, through private or joint investments, the development of projects to meet the unregulated industrial demand.

The self-generating company, as this new associative mechanism has been called, will be a private law company, which will promote the project and will be in charge of financing, final studies, infrastructure construction, self-consumption care and sale of surplus.

For its part, CELEC EP will contribute with Studies of an electricity generation Project, connection studies, its great technical capacity, management of permits or qualifications, as well as being able to take care of aspects related to the operation and maintenance of the infrastructure, explained Entih Carrión, adviser to the General Management of CELEC EP.

Within this framework, CELEC EP promotes the following projects:

La Unión (92.2 MW), located in the province of El Oro; Chontal (194 MW), in Pichincha; Abitagua (165.3 MW), located between Tungurahua, Pastaza, Morona Santiago; and Parambas, with a capacity of 144.5 MW, located between Carchi, Imbabura and Esmeraldas.

After the opening meeting, the attendees were divided into three working groups: legal technical and financial, in which CELEC EP officials and representatives of private companies interested in participating in these processes participated, in order to resolve concerns from this sector. With this line of business, CELEC EP guarantees energy for the National Interconnected System and large consumers.