Coal news and updates

The company SEPCO I Electric Power Construction Corporation, a subsidiary of the Power China group, is supporting Brazil’s Ouro Negro Energia in efforts to raise funds to build a coal-fired thermal power station in Pedras Altas, Santa Catarina state, the Brazilian press reports.

 

The thermal power station will be located near one of Brazil’s main coal deposits and should begin operating in late 2017, with two units each able to produce 300 megawatts. The required investment will amount to USD 1 billion.

 

The Chinese company’s role in financing the power station means that China is now involved in the production of nearly 1.3 gigawatts of electric power based on coal. But that is only a small percentage of the 79 projects and more than 52 gigawatts that Chinese companies are financing or building in Brazil.

 

Cited by the website dialogochino.net, the chairman of Ouro Negra Energia, Sílvio Marques Dias Neto, guaranteed that the project would go forward, adding that the Chinese companies CITIC and Hebi Guochang Energy Development are also involved.

 

Dias Neto also mentioned the possibility that more companies, Chinese or not, would eventually join the Pedras Altas project.

 

Brazil obtains two-thirds of the power it consumes from hydroelectric installations, though climate change and irregular rainfall mean that kind of energy is less reliable. The production shortfall has been covered by conventional thermoelectric power stations. (Macauhub)

SOurce:Macauhub