Construction About To Start On New Wind Power Facility in Panama - Largest in Central America
Panama will end 2013 with the largest wind farm in Central America and one of the largest in Latin America with an investment of $440 million dollars, today reported a source close to the company developing the project. The director of the Spanish company Unión Eólica Panameña (UEP), Rafael Pérez-Pire, said the park, which will cover an area 19,000 hectares, will provide about 220 megawatts of power, doubling that provided by similar facilities in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Honduras. "In terms of Latin America we stand behind Brazil, Mexico and Chile in wind energy," said Perez-Pire while presenting the project to journalists.
He said while energy is generated throughout the year, about 75% of it will be between December and May, during the dry season in this Central American country. He said Panama has an advantage in that renewable energy is "native", allowing it to be developed to the point of the country being self-sufficient in energy, something most other countries - such as Spain for example - do not have.
He said the introduction of wind power will allow the Central American country to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, will prevent the emission of approximately 450,000 tons of carbon to the atmosphere, and will mitigate the emission of 1,000 tons of nitrogen oxide as well as 500 tons of sulfur dioxide. "This amount of sulfur dioxide that we are to avoid, is the equivalent to what a forest of 173,000 hectares captures from the atmosphere in a year," he added.
Pérez-Pire said the park, located in the town of Penonomé in the central province of Cocle, will have 110 wind turbines that will provide approximately 5% of the total energy used in Panama. He said next week they will place the first stone of the project, although they have advanced the construction of part of the structure where the main station will be located. He said during the construction and installation stage there will be about 300 people working, but once the park is operating there will be about 50 full time employees, mostly technical personnel and maintenance. He said according to their projections, the components of the wind turbines will leave the factor by the end of next February, and begin to arrive in Panama about a month later.
The company is a subsidiary of Unión Eólica Española, and won the contract late last year when it submitted a bid of $ 0.9 per kilowatt hour for the long-term supply of wind power in Panama. (Critica)
