COSTA RICA’S STATE POWER company ICE is considering three proposals received for environmental impact studies for the US$1.4B Boruca hydroelectric project.
The proposals were from Colombia’s Ingetec, a consortium of Germany’s lahmeyer, Switzerland’s electrowatt, Brazil’s Ingevix and Japan’s Nippon Koe, and a partnership of France’s edf with the US company montgomery-watson-harza.
The project, located some 120km from San Jose in Puntarenas, has potential to develop around 940MW. Environment and feasibility studies are due for completion in 2004, and startup is planned in 2012.
Boruca is the largest of the seven projects expected to come on stream under the national generation plan. According to the plan, other hydro plants expected to come on line are Genio (US$1.1M, 0.6MW) due in 2003, Cariblanco (US$130M, 80MW) due in 2006, and Pirris (US$260M, 128MW ) due in 2007.