Energias del Pacífico placed first stone of gas plant in El Salvador

The Vice President of the Republic and Technical and Planning Secretary of the Presidency, Óscar Ortiz, together with the President of Energías del Pacífico, Eduardo Zablah, the Vice Minister of Environment, Ángel Ibarra and the President of the National Energy Council, Luis Reyes, placed the first stone that symbolizes the beginning of the construction of the electric power generation plant based on natural gas in Acajutla, Sonsonate; one of the three components of the mega project that represents an investment of more than $ 800 million and that becomes the first project of its nature in El Salvador and one of the pioneers in Central America.

The construction works of the plant will begin on January 5, 2019, this initial phase consists of the preparation of the site including dirt, soil replacement, access roads to the plant, construction of the perimeter wall, areas of internal circulation and areas of parking, among others.

The thermal generation plant of 378 MW of installed capacity that will supply 30% of the national demand will be built by the main contractor Wärtsilä, a Finnish company, a world leader in solutions for energy markets and the marine sector. It consists of an internal combustion engine plant that uses natural gas as fuel, with a combined cycle to maximize performance, maintaining the flexibility that modern plants require to work in conjunction with intermittent renewable energy.

"It is a first world project, never in the history of Central America has there been electricity generation based on gas," asserted the Vicemandatario, who also explained that the implementation of this project will allow not only the production of electricity at lower cost , but also have a better impact on the environment. "This investment is of enormous national impact, we are talking about almost a third of all the energy demand that we have every day, it is clean energy, but not only that, it will have the capacity to produce 355 megabytes," he said.

"This is the beginning of a historical contribution to the diversification of the Salvadoran energy matrix, to supply the market for clean and efficient energy based on natural gas.The construction stage officially begins on January 5, 2019, the plant will enter operation on July 1, 2021. ", says Alejandro Alle, Executive Director of Energía del Pacífico.

The construction works will be executed under the authorized guidelines and supported by the different entities of the state linked to the EDP project, among which the Vice-Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources stand out.

About Pacific Energy:

EDP is the company that owns a power generation project based on liquefied natural gas (LNG) that will be built with an investment that exceeds USD $ 800 million and will be located in the city of Acajutla, department of Sonsonate, with which The El Salvador generation system will have 355 MW of new power and associated energy.

It is a project of national interest, which will produce multiple benefits, among which the diversification of the energy matrix is highlighted due to the introduction of Natural Gas, a clean, safe fuel that will be quickly adopted by the industry, such as It happens in many countries of the world.

About Wärtsilä:

Wärtsilä is one of the main contractors of EDP, who will be in charge of the design and construction of a generating plant and equipment supply.

Wärtsilä is a Finnish company, world leader in solutions for energy markets and the marine sector. It has a presence in 177 countries of the world, with a total installed base of more than 65,000 MW. In El Salvador, it installed its first large plant in 1993 in Nejapa, and more recent ones in Acajutla and Talnique, which add more than 400 MW of installed capacity.

This El Salvador government release was published using an automatic translation system.