Sabesp auctions first two PCHs with investment of US$ 14.6 million
Valor Econômico
The Sabesp (Basic Sanitation Company of the State of Sao Paulo) signs today the first contract for the construction of small hydroelectric power plants (PCHs, after their name in Portuguese), following a plan of the company to take advantage of the potential of generation of its distribution network. Launched at the end of last year, the bid was won by the Tecniplan and Servtec companies, which offered Sabesp the biggest share of generated energy - 23% compared to a minimum of 20% set out in the bidding rules.
The public tender includes two hydroelectric power plants with potential to generate 7 megawatts (MW), enough to power a city with 100 thousand inhabitants. One of the plants will be installed at the treatment station of Guaraú, located in the region of the Cantareira ridge, with a potential for 4 MW. It is the biggest treatment unit of the Sabesp - it supplies 8.8 million inhabitants. The other power plant will be installed at the treatment station of Atibainha, also part of the Cantareira system.
The investment required by the projects, calculates the Sabesp, amounts to R$ 27 million (US$ 14.6 million), and the total earnings with the sale of energy may get to R$ 8 million (US$ 4.32 million) a year. The grant lasts until 2030 and the works should last two years and ten months.
With greater experience in thermal plants, the winning companies should debut as PCHs operators. According to the President of Tecniplan, Marcos Nascimento, it is an innovative project, and it can be expanded to other utilities concessionaires or to other stations of the Sabesp itself, which is currently surveying the potential of other points of the system. "With the project the Sabesp uses a renewable energy that was ready to be reused", he says.