Roraima power auction contracts 9 projects for US$400mn

Brazil’s auction for power supply for Roraima state on Friday contracted a total of nine projects totaling 263.5MW in capacity and investments estimated at 1.6bn reais (US$400mn), with supply due to start by June 2021.

The average price of the projects contracted was 833 reais per MWh. The main winner was local firm Eneva, with its 132MW Jaguatirica II thermopower plant. The unit will be fueled with natural gas produced at the Azulão field, located in neighboring Amazonas state. The gas produced will be liquefied and transported by trucks to Roraima. Eneva expects to invest 1.8bn reais in the project, with execution due to begin in June.

The company closed a contract with Techint for the construction of the thermo plant and with Siemens for the delivery of power equipment. Galileo Technologies will provide the LNG plant, tanking and regasification units.

“In Amazonas we will replicate the best practices we already use in Maranhão and Ceará states,” Eneva CEO Pedro Zinner said in a statement.

Roraima is the only Brazilian state not yet integrated into the main SIN grid and it depends heavily on power imports from neighboring Venezuela and on diesel-fired plants.

“Roraima state's energy security will only be fully complete when we advance with the construction of the Manaus-Boa Vista transmission line,” André Pepitone, director of regulator Aneel said in a statement after the tender.

A full list of the winning projects is available here.