Climate Change: Alto Tuluá Hydroelectric Power Plant (Colombia)

The main goal of this project is to build a minor hydroelectric power plant that will have a total capacity of 20 MW. The energy input will come from the Tuluá river. The main reason to build this power plant is to meet the expected increase in electricity demand of the Cauca Valley and also to improve the energetic system efficiency in general. The figure on the right provides us with basic technical information about the plant.

Basic technical data

It will be located in the middle section of the river, between 1,800 and 1,516 metes above sea level. Electricity will be generated by two 10 MW turbines, which will supply the Colombian electricity system 114. GWh per year. In addition to that, there are two parties involved in this project: Empresa de Energia del Pacifico S.A. (EPSA) E.S.P. and a spanish company named Gas Natural SDG S.A.

The main contribution to sustainable development is the fact that the electricity produced has no direct GHG emissions. the electric energy generated by the hydroelectric plant will partially shift the energy coming from thermal plants. It means that the project will contribute to a global reduction of GHG emissions. Moreover, it will contribute in the reduction of fossil fuel consumption and of course in the increase of renewable energy sources use. Those three issues are all part of the Colombian sustainable development priorities. There is another important contribution derived from the ones mentioned above. In fact it will help the region not to significantly depend on fossil fuel energy generation.

Colombia will also contribute from the technology transfer point of view. The technology needed to build such a plant comes from the most developed countries (like Spain). Attracting investment flows to Columbia (with which new technologies come) it will contribute to its knowledge improvement for future sustainable development projects. The society will become more aware of new available technologies and what they can benefit from it. In my opinion it is a very important aspect, because it may create a social pressure on the authorities to start following such innovative projects.

This project has also an important social role. The plant will be located in a poor region, where the quality of life is quite low. The power plant existence will contribute to regional development. Its region inhabitants might finally meet basic needs like sanitation, light or going even further better educational facilities. Apart from that the project will create jobs in three areas:

1.  Construction (316 direct jobs as workers or technicians)

2.  Execution of activities of the Environmental Handling (10 direct and 20 indirect jobs)

3.  Execution of 1% of the Investment Plan (15 direct and 15 indirect jobs)

Tulua river is situated in the Tulua county (darker orange in the middle of the map).

EPSA will also make different kinds of donations for the community development. They will cover special environmental training, institutional strengthening of the cleaning up policies, Environmental Handling Plan and others (infrastructure projects in education, cleaning up potable water or electrification).

The justification of the project is very simple. First of all it is a power plant that will cover the expected increase in electricity demand. It will use a clean energy source, i.e. water from Tuluá river. Moreover, due to it construction the volume of the river will not change. Among other justifications in the PDD document we can find that it is not a landfill gas project nor with biomass combustion. That the project does not replace fossil fuels by renewable energies in the site where the project activity is carried out. Moreover, the power density of the river is quite high and it surpasses 4W/m2.

The project will change the quality of life of the community not only by adding value (electricity, sanitation, education facilities) but will actually provide some of the inhabitants with jobs. As far as the environmental impact is concerned, if the hydroelectric plant wouldn’t be built, there would be another fossil fuel plant. It would degrade the ecosystem of Cuaca Valley and of course would badly influence the community. In addition to that the GHG emissions reduction would not be met in a same way.

In my opinion this project is a certain success if all of the stakeholders will meet with the expectations. Hydroelectric plants are one of the cleanest power plants available especially when they are build on low-scale. Moreover the project climate resilience is very high. Its good performance depends only on a relative high level of water in the river. The plant will be located in a region that fortunately has a lot of precipitations, so I do not think it will have a significant effect.

References:

1. CDM PDD – “Alto Tuluá Minor Hydroelectric Power Plant”, March 21, 2011

1 comentario / 16 Feb 2012 por Piotr Adam Lubiewa-Wielezynski
IMSD /

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