“From now on, the Los Guzmancito wind farm becomes the most efficient and productive renewable project in the Dominican Republic,” proclaimed engineer Miguel E. Feris, after giving details of the contribution made by this park on Wednesday, January 21. June when the overwhelming heat disturbed the Dominicans.
The representative of the partners of Grupo Energético 23, local investors in the project, “painted a portrait” of the situation that the country experienced that day. “During the rush hour of that Wednesday the 21st, we Dominicans consumed 3,410 MW, and the demand exceeded 3,000 MW in 15 of the 24 hours of that day,” he began by explaining in his speech delivered at the inauguration of the second stage of the project with an investment of 258 million dollars.
But if he was right to bring up the burning temperatures of that day, the comparison he made with other nations regarding the energy expenditure that this entailed for the country, taking into account its geographical size and growth, was even more surprising. “The 74,000 MWh that we consumed in those 24 hours is more than double, I repeat, more than double, the almost 34,000 MWh that was consumed in Panama, Costa Rica or Guatemala that same day. Not to mention Cuba or Jamaica, for example, that consume only a fraction of that,” Feris said to the astonishment of those present.
In the presence of President Luis Abinader, the businessman specified that, “during the rush hour of that day, Dominicans consumed 3,410 MW, and the demand exceeded 3,000 MW in 15 of the 24 hours of that day.”
The contribution of Los Guzmancito
Of this energy consumption, which Feris “portrays”, Los Guzmancito contributed a third of almost half that the wind farms injected out of the 12,000 MWh produced by renewables (obviously, which also include photovoltaic and hydroelectric plants). “That would be equivalent to more or less the generation of one day, from one of the two Punta Catalina plants,” said the representative of the partners of Grupo Energético 23.
And he quoted: “That is to say, that these 29 turbines, built around you, on this site over the last four years at a cost of 258 million dollars, generated and injected 30% of the total wind energy that we consumed that day (Wednesday, June 21). And the other 141 turbines installed throughout the rest of our country generated the remaining 70%”.
And, if the detail deciphered by Feris in relation to the aforementioned date was interesting, it caused a greater impact on those present when he emphasized: “We achieved all this without burning a barrel of oil, or a container of natural gas, or imported coal. We did it by converting into energy what God gave us Dominicans; the wind, the sun and the water, because that is our oil”.
More data?
During his speech, the businessman also commented that, just two days later, that is, on Friday, June 23, “in Guzmancito, we broke our own wind generation record in 24 hours, when we injected 1,732.57 MWh into the network, which is enough to power light bulbs, refrigerators, and fans in almost 130,000 homes.”
He stressed that it is also enough to supply the total consumption of that same day, of the entire city of Puerto Plata; with all its houses, hotels, villas, industries, tourism and so on. “Keep in mind that this is the fifth municipality with the most consumption in the country,” Feris let it be known, who took the opportunity to explain that, each lap, which lasts six seconds, in each of those turbines that work at their maximum capacity, they can light 3,000 houses, with each turn.
“Anyway, I wanted to take advantage of today to do
this reflection with you, because these incredible amounts of generation and consumption, unimaginable 10 years ago and unprecedented in our 200 years of modern history, are abstract numbers and difficult to understand for the vast majority of Dominicans, but those of us here, operating the engine room of our economy, we know that they will be repeated several times this summer, and that in a short time, they will seem little to us”, concluded Feris.