This morning the signing of the first license for independent energy production and transportation granted to a private firm in Paraguay was carried out. This is Paracel SA, a Paraguayan company that will soon operate a world-class eucalyptus pulp mill.
This license was coordinated through the Ministry of Public Works and Communications (MOPC) and signed by the heads of the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (MADES), National Electricity Administration (ANDE), Ministry of Industry and Commerce ( MIC).
The plant will produce 220 MW of renewable energy from forest biomass, a non-fossil fuel that will drive the plant’s energy consumption and more. The excess energy will be available for the electrical grid and thus provide clean energy for the peripheral region. As an example, the excess of clean energy, which will be around 100 MW, is equivalent to the consumption of a city of some 200,000 inhabitants.
In this context, the Minister of Public Works, Arnoldo Wiens, celebrated this fact as an effort within the framework of the National Energy Policy, mainly to diversify the energy matrix in supply and demand, incorporating energy efficiency.
“Today we celebrate with great pride the incursion of Paracel SA into the energy sector as a cogenerator, granting it the Definitive Cogeneration License, for the generation of electrical energy,” said Wiens.
The factory will be located in the department of Concepción, on the banks of the Paraguay River and 20 km from the urban center of the city of Concepción. Its construction is expected to begin during the second half of 2022 on an area with more than 180,000 hectares of land, in which it plans to plant 140 million eucalyptus trees, 80% of what is required by the factory and, additionally, 20% through purchase from small local producers.
Paracel expects to create some 4,000 direct jobs at the industrial plant, in the port and on the plantations, and 36,000 indirect and indirect-indirect jobs for people in the Concepción region.
