AES Dominicana US$300M in tech aims to develop clean energy

Santo Domingo.- The AES Dominicana energy group has invested more than US$300.0 million in the last three years on projects to develop and diversify the county’s energy matrix, affirmed AES Corporation senior vice president Bernerd Da Santos on Thursday.

In his presentation “AES Vision, Innovation and Proactivity” in the American Chamber of Commerce’s (AMCHAMDR) Clean Energy Forum, the Group’s global operations leader said governments and regulations, “are setting renewable energy targets at the same time that our customers, the communities we serve and our shareholders are requesting a cleaner energy supply.”

Responding to the stakeholders’ needs, Da Santos noted, will require innovative, much more efficient and economically sustainable energy systems. “And we wanted to make the Dominican Republic one of the first countries in the Latin American region where AES develops works in that sense. ”

In that regard, the AES executive said in AES “we understand that integration and energy balance must have a mixture of different technologies, which must be adaptable to each country’s own resources and contribute to its development.”

“We believe in being an integrator of these technologies and doing so in a sustainable manner, such as Dominican Republic’s case,” said the executive who visits the country as speaker in the AMCHAMDR forum,.

“Within the investments made by AES Dominicana is the installation in January 2017 of 20 megawatts in the generators Dominican Power Partner and AES Andres energy storage system, an innovative element in the global electrical industry, and that comes to support the development of renewable energies, based on a reliable technology and zero emissions, Da Santos said.

“AES has 10 years of experience in the creation, development, construction and operation of this energy solution, which is innovative, flexible and allows, among other things, to improve the efficiency and reliability of power grids.”

He said the Dominican Republic is Central America’s first country, and second in Latin America after Chile, where AES installs such technology. “Among the other investments made by the company in the country are the installation of two hydraulic micro-turbines in AES Andres and the power plant Itabo and two solar panel farms in the same facilities.

“We also concluded the revamping of the existing Liquid Natural Gas terminal in the AES Andres complex to be a port of entry and exit for ships. With this readjustment we connect the Caribbean becoming Dominican Republic’s first storage and transport hub that delivers natural gas to the other Caribbean islands. As a result of this we’ve already signed a supply agreement to the island of Barbados,” Da Santos said, adding that  next June 12, the DPP unit VII will be inaugurated as a result of the conversion to combined cycle, which will add 114 megawatts to the National Interconnected Electricity System (SENI), with an investment of 260 million dollars.

Sustainability leader

“AES Corporation has been recognized for its sustainable practices by prestigious institutions including the inclusion in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for North America where AES is one of only four electric companies on the list. The Dow Jones Sustainability Index is a leading benchmark in the sustainable investment field and ranks among the two with the highest sustainability indices,” says AES in an emailed statement.