Argentine Companies to Invest in Four Power Plants Based on Soybean and Waste Cooking Oils

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Argentine companies Emgasud and Nor Aldyl, both headquartered in Buenos Aires, are moving forward with initiatives to produce electricity from recovered vegetable cooking oil and soybean oil as part of the Official Plan of Renewable Energies Program (Genren), put forward by Argentina's Ministry of Federal Planning in 2009.

The projects entail the construction in the next two years of four thermoelectric plants that will use renewable sources as a fuel in order to produce a total of 110 megawatts (MW). The plants will be constructed in the provinces of Buenos Aires, Entre Rios, Corrientes and Santa Fe.

The used vegetable oil will constitute the raw material for the production of biodiesel that will feed the Bella Vista facility in Corrientes, which will have a generating capacity of 8.4 MW. The plant will be equipped with a Wärtsilä (Helsinki, Finland) 34DF 8.4-MW internal combustion engine and will begin producing electricity for the grid in the fourth quarter of 2011 or beginning of 2012.

The other three facilities, San Lorenzo in the Santa Fe province, Parana in the Entre Rios province and Bragado in the Buenos Aires province, will have a capacity of 34 MW each. Each of the facilities will be equipped with four Wärtsilä 34DF engines fired by soybean oil purified to a stage prior to the manufacturing of biofuel. These plants are expected to begin operations in mid-2012.

Emgasud and Nor Aldyl have signed purchase agreements with Argentina Energy Company (Enarsa) to dispatch the electricity produced at their plants for a period of 15 years. For that, these companies are already in negotiations with the largest oil producers in the country to secure the supply of the raw material for these undertakings.

Wärtsilä was awarded a turnkey contract to supply the complete power plants. Civil works, construction and substation erection will be subcontracted in the coming months.

In addition to these developments, Emgasud recently obtained the approval to move forward with the construction of four wind projects with a total capacity of 180 MW in southern Argentina. The 50-MW Puerto Madryn I, Puerto Madryn II, and Rawson I projects and the 30-MW Rawson II development are scheduled to begin construction this year. Both developments will use Vestas V90 1.8-MW wind turbines.

In 2010, Enarsa tendered under the Genren program a total of 895 MW of power generation based on renewable sources, and it had stipulated that 110 MW would correspond to the production of thermoelectric energy coming from vegetable oils. This is explained by the huge amount of soybeans produced in the country, which in 2010 reached a record 55 million tons. Naturally, the first option when considering fuels for these developments comes from this crop.

Other developments encouraged by Argentina's government under the Genren program are 13 windfarms proposed to be built through 2012 with a total capacity of 574 MW. These are: Malaspina I (50 MW), Malaspina II (30 MW), Pto. Madryn Oeste (20 MW), Pto.Madryn Sur (50 MW), Pto. Madryn Norte (50 MW), Koluel Kaike I (50 MW), Koluel Kaike II (25 MW), Loma Blanca I (50 MW), Loma Blanca II (50 MW), Loma Blanca III (50 MW), Loma Blanca IV (50 MW), Tres Picos I (49.5 MW) and Tres Picos II (49.5 MW).

According to a study by the Argentine Renewable Energy Chamber, nearly 70% of Argentina's territory has winds with annual average speed surpassing six meters per second. In central and southern Patagonia, the speeds can reach on average nine meters per second and up to 12 meters per second.

The government initiatives to launch renewable energy tenders are aimed to assist in achieving the requirement that by the year 2016, 8% of the country's energy matrix must be derived from renewable sources. These undertakings will result in investments of more than $2 billion and the creation of approximately 1,000 new jobs.

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