Florida, US-based Oxbow Power Corporation has announced that it has been awarded a contract to build, operate, and transfer a 39MW hydro power plant in Costa Rica.
The contract was awarded by Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), the national power company in Costa Rica. The scheme will be located on Rio Genera and is due to begin operation in February 2003.
The Oxbow Power Corporation and a group of investors led by BEL Engineering, a local engineering firm, and Jose Altmann & Compania Limitida, submitted a bid to ICE on 9 February 2000. They were awarded the project on 9 June 2000.
Oxbow expects to break ground and begin construction of the facility by the third quarter of 2000.
The project is expected to cost US$78M and will be developed under a 17-year build, operate, transfer (BOT) investment regime.
The Oxbow consortium will negotiate the project contracts, arrange financing, build the facility, operate the power plant and sell electricity to the utility for 17 years.
At the conclusion of the co-operation period, the power plant will be transferred to ICE at no cost.