Bolivia: Government delivers transmission line with state-of-the-art system to close the energy ring in Beni

By MHE , Ende

This is a machine translation of the original press release issued in Spanish

UCOM-MHE-ENDE-11-25-2022.- With the start-up of a Synchronous Static Compensation (Statcom) team, President Luis Arce Catacora, the Minister of Hydrocarbons and Energy, Franklin Molina Ortiz, and the Vice President of ENDE Corporación, Mauricio Arevey, inaugurated on Thursday night the second stage of the 230 kilovolt (kV) Los Troncos – Guarayos – Paraíso – Trinidad Transmission Line, which closes the energy ring in Beni and guarantees the continuity and quality of the electricity supply to families from the capital Trinidad.

"We have a plan that is to industrialize Beni, for this we need water and electricity, that is why today we are inaugurating the transmission line to have a stable electricity service in Trinidad, which guarantees the industrialization process," said the President during the act official, referring to the fact that this second stage of the project required an investment of Bs76.4 million.

“We are making a rural electrification plan because everyone has the right to access stable electricity service 365 days a year. The national government complies, we are here to deliver works and contribute to the development and progress of the department of Beni”, added Arce.

For his part, Minister Molina said that the Statcom system is a new technology, implemented for the first time in the Bolivian high-voltage system, and on this occasion, to favor the development of the Benian capital.

"A long time ago there were continuous blackouts in their homes and as a result the electrical equipment burned, today thanks to this project the electrical system will be reinforced," he said.

The transmission line extends the interconnected trunk system to the north of the department of Santa Cruz and to the city of Trinidad, through the construction of substations and 230 kV and 115 kV transmission lines.

The project, located 11 km from the city of the capital of Beni, has two stages: the first stage consists of the construction of a transmission line of approximately 383 km in length at 230 kV, which begins at the Los Troncos substation, it passes through the new intermediate substations of Guarayos and Paraíso 230/115 kV and reaches the existing substation in Trinidad.

This project will increase the electricity transmission capacity to meet the growing demand in that region of the country. In addition, it will help to replace the thermoelectric generation of the isolated system in Ascensión de Guarayos and reduce the thermoelectric generation of the Moxos Power Plant in Trinidad. Both generation plants use diesel, which represents a very high economic cost and also an environmental impact.

The Statcom is a static reactive power compensation system, which controls the voltage levels required by the system in steady and dynamic state conditions. It is an important piece of equipment for the national electrical system, because it improves stability, ensures operation, avoids possible collapses in the transmission network, and dispenses with local diesel-based generation at the Moxos de Trinidad plant.