Commissioning of the first of the two 115MW units was completed in February and work has just finished on the second - which will be the first to generate commercially, next week. The first unit is having some additional work done before it runs commercially, due by mid-May.
First flows in the power tunnel took place in January, contractor Odebrecht having started construction on the run-of-river project in 2003. The project involved much tunnel excavation to intercept the 116m3/sec discharge flows from the upstream 156MW Agoyan scheme, taking them along a 9km headrace to an underground power house and be released farther down the river Pastaza.
The scheme has been built under a 30-year concession granted by the country's electricity authority Conelec to the Hidropastaza consortium, consisting of Hidro Agoyan and Odebrecht. In additional to the equity funds from the consortium partners, project finance came as debt from the Brazilian development bank BNDES.
Partners with Odebrecht in the engineer, procure and construct (EPC) turnkey contract were Alstom and VA Tech Hydro. Detailed design was carried out by Caminosca and PCE Engenharia.
