November 25, 2022, 7:17 AM
November 25, 2022, 7:17 AM
If there is something that Bolivia has plenty of, it is electricity. The installed capacity (power) as of October 2022 was 3,638 megawatts (MW), while the meter marked the maximum demand, in a similar period, at 1,585 MW; that is, there is 43.5% of idle energy that is not used, according to data from the National Load Dispatch Committee (CNDC).
In this context, the 2023 General State Budget (PGE) plans to allocate Bs 4,097 million to the National Electricity Company (ENDE Corporation) and expects that state company to generate income of Bs 1,209 million.
The amount assigned -according to the Financial Law project- establishes that it is for the expansion of the transmission networks with the construction of the transmission line and interconnection San Ignacio de Velasco and San Matías to the National Interconnected Service (SIN) will be allocated Bs 412 ,2 millions.
Bs 660.8 million will be invested for energy generation and Bs 170.5 million will be needed for its distribution, while at the same time specific binational meetings on the Bolivia-Brazil Binational Treaty will begin.
The PGE 2023 also details that ENDE Corporación is expected to generate income of Bs 1,209 million, broken down as follows: by generation, Bs 351 million, by distribution, Bs 183 million, Bs 575 million, by transmission and Bs 100 million by others. income.
Oswaldo Irusta, an electricity specialist, said that when talking about resources, investment costs and operation or maintenance costs must be taken into account.
In this sense, the analyst specified that where the magnifying glass should be put is in the investment costs, in seeing what the more than Bs 4,000 million that are destined to ENDE are going to be used for and if they are going to be recovered. Regarding the operating costs, according to his criteria they are recoverable, because the generation and transmission of electricity is something that is always paid for.
As for the country’s oversupply of electricity, Irusta remarked that this is due to the fact that generation planning was not technical, but political, since it was done under “personal and partisan” criteria.
For Irusta, the possibility of exporting electricity is “a Chinese tale”, because in the region there is no real need for Bolivian electricity since Brazil has an installed capacity of 120,000 MW, Argentina 60,000 MW and Chile around 15,000 MW. .
“In electricity, the opportunity market dominates, this is that the client asks you to provide a service to his home. For this reason, Bolivia is paying for the transmission line on both the national and Argentine sides. This is a different business from hydrocarbons, since electricity is not a commodity”, observed Irusta.
In turn, Sergio Arnez, an analyst in the electricity sector, remarked that the world is reorganizing the energy supply between countries, due to environmental issues and the war in Ukraine, neighboring nations require a lot of energy, especially renewable, he said.
Thus, he noted that unfortunately Bolivia bet on gas-based electricity generation, but did not do the necessary exploration to have a sufficient quantity and did not develop renewable generation in the necessary magnitude and opportunity, so at this time it seems difficult to think about exporting electricity, despite the fact that the necessary infrastructure to sell around 100 MW to Argentina has been practically ready for quite some time.
At the beginning of 2022, Luis Arce, the country’s president, stressed that Bolivia has an installed capacity of 3,947 MW of electricity in the SIN and Isolated Systems, of which some 1,400 MW are surplus for industrialization and export.
The PGE for next year estimates that the income that public companies will generate will be around Bs 61,111 million. YPFB projects Bs 46,294 million, Boliviana de Aviación (BoA), Bs 2,713 million.
The Bolivian Mining Corporation (Comibol) estimates revenues of Bs 2,162 million; Wine, Bs 1,717 million; ENDE Corporation, Bs 1,209 million, the Food Production Support Company (Emapa), Bs 1,084 million and some Bs 942 million will come from other sectors.
Jhony Mercado, former president of the Bolivian College of Economists, pointed out that the income generated by state companies must still be confirmed and whether they are close to what was programmed by the PGE for 2022, in order to have a full picture of what can be expected. for the next administration.
