Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) — Atlantic Wind & Solar Inc., the
Tucson, Arizona-based renewable-energy developer, won permission
to sell electricity from two solar power plants in Ecuador at
$400.30 a megawatt-hour, four times the rate of hydropower.
The plants, planned for the northern towns of Lagarto and
Tonchigue, will sell power to the Ecuadorean government, Gilles Trahan, chairman and chief executive officer of Atlantic Wind,
said in a phone interview today. They will have total generation
capacity of 58.4 megawatts and cost $150 million.
Ecuador, the smallest producer in the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries, is seeking to attract global
developers of renewable energy to diversify its energy supply by
offering higher rates for their electricity, Trahan said. About
54 percent of Ecuador’s power came from hydroelectric dams and
38 percent from oil in 2009, according to the International
Energy Agency.
“This is a plum deal” for Atlantic Wind, Jenny Chase, a
London-based analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said
today in a telephone interview. “They should be awfully
pleased.”
Atlantic Wind rose 21 percent to 40 cents at 11:17 a.m. in
New York. Trahan said hydropower normally sells for about $100 a
megawatt-hour.
Ecuador is seeking to get 6 percent of its power, or about
300 megawatts, from renewable sources, Chase said. Other solar
developers that have agreed to sell power in Ecuador include
Spain’s Isofoton SA and a group of Canadian companies, she said.
Germany offers solar developers 118 euros ($158.57) a
megawatt hour for large projects under its feed-in-tariff
program, she said.
The company expects to complete the two plants in the first
quarter of next year using short-term loans. It will then sell
them, Trahan said.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Stephan Nielsen in Sao Paulo at
snielsen8@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net
