Within the framework of Paraguay's new National Energy Policy, looking towards 2050, the Vice Minister of Mines and Energy of the Guaraní country, Mauricio Bejarano, revealed the government's interest in investing in this project.
"Latin America needs the boost of hydroelectric plants as a source of generation that would contribute to growth, which is why "we want to promote these projects and will begin negotiations to do so," said the Deputy Minister of Mines and Energy, Mauricio Bejarano, referring to the Corpus and Itacorá-Itatí hydroelectric projects.
“We know that all this about using the Paraná River basin will be in the medium term, because negotiations and feasibility studies are still lacking,” he explained, adding that in the case of Corpus there are already pre-feasibility studies, very well finished, but that a feasibility study and binational conversations are still lacking.
He admitted that this is a medium-term project, but considered very necessary for the future. “Corpus has an interesting pre-feasibility study and, above all, it has a study that can complement what would be Itaipu, because for a time it was said that it took away power from Itaipu, but today there are several interesting studies that show that they can complement each other perfectly,” explained Bejarano.
He added that, due to climate change, the study was carried out on the waters of the Paraná River basin, taking into account various scenarios: with an increase in temperature, rainfall and water flow, in order to project the aforementioned Corpus and Itati-Itacorá power plants.
“Corpus would be the project that already has a pre-feasibility study and, obviously, we have to do a feasibility study that gives the three nations (Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil) the possibility of coming to the table and being able to see if we move forward or not, but the will would already be there,” the official stressed.
CORPUS: WE MUST PREPARE FOR THE FUTURE, SAYS VICE MINISTER
He recalled that the Energy Committee, in order to develop the new Paraguayan Energy Policy, carried out several studies, including the energy outlook, which is the future demand with previous economic trend scenarios that would impact energy consumption, in order to make these decisions.
“The impact of climate change is a greater volume of water. What does this mean? That we have to prepare for the future, for better management of this greater volume of water. There was a favorable and positive result that tells us that we must
to promote these other power plants," he said.
He also said that water shortages, such as the one we are seeing today, are cyclical, according to all the experts consulted. “For this study we have turned to great specialists in different parts of the world. So, the decision is to move forward. As we know, these are bi- and even tri-national negotiations, in the case of Corpus, which will take time, but we do have the will to carry them forward,” he said.
CORPUS PROJECT HAS NOT YET BEEN CARRIED OUT AT THE PRESIDENTIAL LEVEL
Bejarano clarified that this project has not yet been taken to the presidential level, despite the fact that all countries need more electricity generation.
It should be remembered that, according to the Report of the Technical Working Group on “Power and Energy Availability – Period 2020-2040”, published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the previous government, it was considered that with Corpus there would be an availability of 1,296 MW more power.
"According to the schedule of works presented by COMIP (Paraguayan-Argentine Joint Commission of the Paraná River) and considering the time required for the negotiation of the corresponding treaty, the entry into service of this plant is estimated to begin in 2036," the document states.
In addition, it considered a total of 20 units of 144 MW, with two units permanently reserved for the plant, so there would be availability for the SIN (Paraguayan National Interconnected System) with a total of nine units of 144 MW, that is, 1,296 MW.
In the case of Itatí-Itacorá, they pointed out that, taking into account the information provided by COMIP on the progress of the studies related to the construction of this plant, as well as the greater complexities foreseen in this project, compared to the Corpus project, especially in environmental aspects, it was estimated that it would be displaced with respect to Corpus. For this reason, the commissioning of this plant was not planned until 2040.
“The total capacity of the plant is considered to be 1,296 MW, corresponding to an average of the alternatives analysed by COMIP. Estimating a value of 30 generating units, the approximate value would be 43.2 MW per generating unit,” the study also pointed out.
