The energy market is looking for a fourth transmission line

The Electric Transmission Company, SA (Etesa) is scheduled for January 2024 to call for tenders for the fourth electric transmission linewhich already has some delays, said the general director of the entity Carlos Mosquera.

If the tender is announced in January, the implementation of the project would take about two years. Mosquera explains that the same contracting modality through a PPP public-private association caused certain delays.

The Etesa traceability determines the publication of the tender documents in January 2024, the receipt of the offer in April and the signing of the PPP contract in July, which would allow the delivery of the order to continue in August 2024 and the start of work in mid-September. that year. If this schedule is met, the fourth transmission line would start operating in the third quarter of 2026.

Etesa works in Definitive Technical Report (ITD)which includes a feasibility report, tender documentation, prior to presentation to the Governing Body for the absence of objections in December 2023.

The line, which will stretch from Chiriquí Grande to the Panama III substation being built near the Rod Carew Stadium, is estimated at an investment of 720 to 760 million dollars, which will be financed by the awarded consortium, while for Etesa, since it is a self-sustaining project , funds for its abolition will come from the rate generated by the new line.

The fourth transmission line is a new highway so that the three existing Pacific roads have room to interconnect the new renewable energy generation facilities that are expected to enter the system in the next four years.

Failure to build the fourth line would put us in danger of experiencing the same experience as the third line in 2013 in four or five years, when, due to the delay in construction, production exceeded the amount of existing transmission lines. In this case, the risk could be as harmful as the one on line 3, warned Mosquera.’

in 2024

They would start the works (in mid-September), according to Etese’s traceability to this project.

in 2026

It will be put into operation if the tender documents are published in January 2024.

The same market requires this project in order to be able to make the appropriate projections and have the appropriate infrastructural capacity of the transmission network.

ETESA transmits energyof high voltage for more than 3,000 kilometers of lines, 4,500 high-voltage poles, 18 substations and 22 communication points. In the next two and a half years, an additional 800 to 1000 MW is expected to be injected with the contribution of renewable energy sources.

Plan B, considering the delay in the construction of the fourth transmission line, would be the recharging of lines 1 and 2, and the works are already underway, explained the manager of Etese. Currently, these projects have been awarded and they will increase the power by approximately 1000 MW, which would give a space of about three to four years.

Regarding the environmental and social factors, Mosquera claims that ETESA invested nine years of negotiations with the population that the line crosses and in 2021 signed an agreement with Regional Congress Ñö Kribo (Ngäbe-Buglé), which determines the basis of compensation.

They also carried out 100% remediation of areas contaminated by unexploded ammunition in the easement area, as well as consulting services for the creation of an Environmental Impact Study. The EIA category III is expected to be approved in the first half of next year.

Finally, the consulting service for Commercial Appraisal Studies in the project’s right-of-way area is in the process of being approved by the Office of the Supervisor, Mosquera concluded.