Koreans to submit proposal to develop Amaila Falls Hydro Project

The Amaila Falls hydropower project is still being pursued by the government.

On Thursday, Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo said the government is willing to review all favourable proposals.

This week, a visiting delegation from Korea expressed interest in submitting a proposal but Jagdeo said the government remains interested in a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) model, where the company would fund the development of the project and then operate and maintain the completed project, earning from the service provided.

Jagdeo was responding to a question on whether the government was in talks with the Canadian government to move the project forward.

“I don’t know about that,” he said before clarifying that “we met with a group of Koreans from Hyundai. They want to submit a proposal.”

Jagdeo said the government was not interested in an EPC – engineering procurement construction – where the contractor will handle the entire project from the start to the completion.

“We want to buy power. The last project failed because the Chinese firm that won the bid wanted to shift from BOOT to EPC and then we annulled the award.”

“We don’t have a problem reviewing any proposals coming from anyone but it has to be favourable. The plan was to work with the U.S and a few others,” Jagdeo added.

The China Railway Group Limited, the company initially selected to construct the Amaila Falls in 2012, was once again granted approval to construct this massive renewable energy project in 2021 but that fell through when the company wanted to change the model.

This hydropower project is an integral part of the government’s plan to create an energy mix that will meet the growing electricity demand while allowing Guyana to gradually phase out the use of environmentally- unfriendly fossil fuels like diesel.

The other integral components in the government’s energy mix are the forthcoming gas-to-shore project and the countrywide solar power network. Altogether, these projects should meet the tripled electricity demand in about four years’ time.

Guyana has committed to slashing its emissions of harmful gases- produced through the use of heavy fuel- by some 70 per cent by 2030. In simpler terms, the country hopes to get about 70 per cent of its energy from cleaner, or more renewable sources.

Construction of the Amaila Falls project was expected to commence in 2022, with a 2025 completion date. With this delay, the Vice President was optimistic that the project could still be completed by 2030- enabling Guyana to meet its energy targets.