(Demerara Waves) The Guyana government has identified China Railway Group Limited to open negotiations to build the Amaila Falls Hydropower project and sell electricity to Guyana Power and Light for 7 US cents per kilowatt hour, the Finance Ministry announced on Monday.
The actual cost to build the power plant is not yet known, but government said that all it would be doing is buying the electricity for GPL to resell at 15 US cents per kilowatt hour.
Under the Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) model, the Finance Ministry said China Railway Group “will provide the entire equity required by the project and undertake all the risks associated with the project.”
Government said that overall this deal is even better than the previous one. “In its current formulation, it is expected that the project will require no equity contribution from Government, in comparison with the previous project structure which was based on a Government contribution of US$100 million. Additionally, the current structure anticipates a cost of power that will be lower than the initial cost of 11 cents per KWH contemplated by the previous project structure.”
