Energy diversification is key in times of drought

The diversification of the energy matrix was key for Panama last year, a drier-than-normal year, he detailed general manager of the company Transfer Eléctrica, SA (ETESA), Carlos Mosquera.

Installed renewable energy generation has freed up reservoirs amid water shortages facing the country and the long summer predicted due to it El Niño phenomenonhe indicated.

In this regard, the Energy Cabinet assesses the state of the country’s energy sector on a monthly basis in order to establish a mitigation plan to avoid measures such as planned blackouts at all costs.

Mosquera also referred to the importance of renewable interconnection in order to guarantee the stabilization of the price of electricity and even achieve its reduction.

“If we achieve renewable interconnection into the system, it will guarantee that the price of electricity will stabilize and even decrease,” he showed.

“That is why it is in our interest to have an electricity transmission system of the necessary capacity, because we know that in the medium or long term, if we do not do this, we may face the possibility of an increase in the price of electricity,” added Mosquera.

The national interconnected system expansion plan has 18 identified projects that guarantee the energy transition plan.

Nine of them have already been awarded for more than 200 million dollars and by the end of the year it is planned to be allocated in its entirety, which will exceed it 350 million dollars.

These projects represent five new transmission lines and four new substations, so that the system has the necessary capacity so that the new plants for the production of renewable energy, planned for 1000 MV to 1500 MV in the short term, have a concrete possibility of interconnection. national system, Mosquera indicated.

Mosquera hopes to start construction by 2024.

In the meantime, The fourth electric transmission line Its main objective is to increase energy transmission capacity, from production facilities to distribution and consumer centers, while improving interconnection between the different regions of the Republic of Panama.

Likewise, Fourth Line, which represents an investment of 750 million dollars, It will reduce energy loss, as the increase in energy transmission capacity minimizes the losses that occur in heavily loaded lines.

The project includes the construction of an insulated double-circuit electrical transmission line at 500 kV (AC), starting at 230 KV, with an approximate length of 330 km and covering the provinces Bocas del Toro, Veraguas, Colón and Coclé, the Ngäbe-Buglé region and the Panama Canal, until arriving in the province of Panama.

Mosquera pointed out that this will be the first transmission line in Central America that will operate at the level of 500 kilowatts.