Paraguay’s state-owned power utility Administración Nacional de Electricidad (ANDE) has awarded AFRY, in consortium with Latinoconsult S.A., planning and supervision of the rehabilitation and modernization of the 200 MW Acaray hydropower plant.
The Acaray station on the Acaray River in the department of Alto Paraná was commissioned in 1969. The renovation and modernization project, financed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), is part of ANDE’s 2021-2040 Generation Roadmap, which envisions expansion of the hydro complex with the development of 19 small hydro projects, solar photovoltaic plants, hybrid and battery energy storage systems.
In April 2020, Hydro Review reported that studies were planned to determine the potential of installing a pilot floating solar photovoltaic project at the Acaray hydro plant.
AFRY, with Latinoconsult from Argentina, will provide full services work, with the aim of extending the plant’s life cycle, improving its availability and reliability, and increasing the electrical generation capacity.
The first phase of the project will last about 20 months. AFRY will review previous studies and design technical solutions that will be tendered and ultimately implemented during the second phase of the contract, which will take place in the following 40 months. During execution of the rehabilitation work, AFRY will supervise the contractors on site and verify the technical and social-environmental compliance of the project.
As hydropower is the main source of clean energy in Paraguay, the Acaray–Yguazú complex is one of the most important power plants to meet the country’s growing energy demand and accelerate the sustainability transition. It is therefore essential to modernize and further improve the power generation infrastructure with state-of-the-art technology, security systems, monitoring instrumentation and emergency action plans, ANDE said.
AFRY is a European company that provides engineering, design and advisory services in infrastructure, industry, energy and digitalization.
