Inambari: Peru's energy ambitions

Hopes and fears of a regional energy hub

Hydro-powered dreams

Feb 10th 2011 | LIMA | from PRINT EDITION

AT LESS than 8,000MW, Peru’s total electricity-generation capacity is modest, barely matching four modern nuclear power stations. But President Alan García’s government reckons it could produce almost eight times as much power just by harnessing the country’s Amazonian rivers, let alone using increasingly plentiful supplies of natural gas, and wind and solar power. The government has big ambitions to turn the country into a regional energy hub, exporting electricity to Brazil and Chile. Some of these plans are starting to be put into effect. And they look set to generate some equally big protests.

Last year the government signed an agreement under which Peru will export up to 6,000MW of electricity to Brazil, a plan that would involve mainly Brazilian companies investing around $20 billion. After Mr García visited his Chilean counterpart, Sebastián Piñera, last month, the two governments agreed to set up a joint energy-study group. A transmission line connecting Peru and Ecuador was built a few years ago, but has rarely been used because the two countries have been unable to agree on a price for electricity.

Green groups are mobilising against the proposed hydroelectric dams. Their first target is a $4 billion, 2,000MW dam at Inambari, in Peru’s south-eastern jungle (see map). This would flood around 400 square kilometres. The protests against it are backed by the regional government. Another dam proposed by a Brazilian consortium, at Paquitzapango, has been stalled by the energy ministry. Leaders of the Ashánikas, an Amazonian tribe, complained that it would displace 10,000 people.

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The government’s plans centre on the Marañón river, which it calls Peru’s “energy artery”, with the capacity to generate 10,000MW from six dams. But local people along the river say they have not been consulted about the hydroelectric schemes. That is par for the course of Mr García’s government, which tends to approve mines and oil concessions and only start consulting afterwards.

Exporting electricity to Chile, which grabbed a chunk of Peru’s territory after a 19th-century war, is also controversial. Nevertheless, the energy ministry proposes to grant a concession to build a 1,500MW fossil-fuel power station near the border. This would use natural gas from Peru’s big Camisea field. Work is due to start this year on building a pipeline from Camisea to the border. The government reckons it can sell electricity to mines in Chile’s northern desert.

To nationalist politicians, that smacks of powering the enemy. Officials respond that linking up the two country’s electricity grids is part of South American integration, a progressive goal to which even their opponents pay lip-service. 

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