international

Company chosen for energy exchange project

A 614-kilometer transmission line will be constructed between Panama and Colombia.

LA PRENSA

sharing: The $207 million project will be jointly owned and operated by Colombian and Panamanian companies.1098787

Intercolpa has been registered in the Registro Público as the company that will own the transmission line planned between the Colombia and Panama, allowing an interchange of electricity between the two countries sometime in 2012.

The company, a joint venture formed by the Panamanian Empresa de Transmisión Eléctrica, S.A. (Etesa) and the Colombian Interconexión Eléctrica, S.A. E.S.P. (ISA), will have its headquarters in Panama, but be directed by Colombian coordinator Andrés Villegas beginning in March of next year. One of the project’s stipulations, however, is that the parent companies will alternate in appointing a new coordinator every other year.

The construction of the transmission line, encompassing 614 kilometers of lines stretching both above ground and underwater, is estimated to cost $207 million. Substations will be built at the two ends of the transmission line, in Panama City and Cerromatoso, Colombia.

Since the first tender for the environmental impact study was declared unsuccessful, there will be a public solicitation to choose the company to conduct the next study, which will likely take about nine months to wend through the approval process required by the Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente (Anam).

Those studies, including technical and social investigations, have been estimated to cost $4 million, to which the Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo will contribute $1.5 million.

Ideas for cultivating an energy exchange within the region were born of discussions at the Cumbre sobre la Iniciativa Energética Mesoamericana, held in Cancún, México on December 13, 2005. Then, in 2006, the two companies, ISA and Etesa, held a series of meetings to hammer out the details of the interconnection.