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18 | Prysmian Group
Insight
The Czech Government
is planning one of the largest
projects in the country’s
infrastructure history.
Czech
Republic
to unify
the electric
railway
Staging the future
The Czech Republic is planning one of
the largest projects in the history of
the country’s railways infrastructure.
Under the project, announced by Czech
Transport Ministry, the electric grids on
which the railway is currently running
will be unified. The Czech railways are
currently powered by two different
electric grids, roughly split in two parts
between the north and south of the
country. The northern electric grid is
powered by a one-way 3kV direct current
system, while the southern grid is driven
by the more modern 25kV alternating
current system. The Czech Government
is planning to unify the entire railway
into the alternating current system. For
that purpose, the ministry plans a tender
for a feasibility study into the project
of unification. The entire project of
unification of the electric grid should take
decades, costing tens of billions of Czech
korunas and including the renewal of the
entire train fleet.
TheMexican energy regulation Commission
has announced that the Spanish energy
firm, Iberdrola, will build five electricity
generation plants in Mexico using
renewable energy. The projects will be
developed between 2016 and 2017 and
they will provide electricity to companies
such
as
Cuauhtemoc
Moctezuma,
Gamesa,
Apasco,
Metalsa,
Magna
Internacional and PepsiCo, among others.
The Commission approved the permits for
the development of the initiatives, which
will receive the clean energy certificates
from 2018. It is estimated that Iberdrola
will invest between $745 million and $896
million in the projects. The initiatives
encompass two solar energy plants in San
Luis Potosi and Sonora, with an installed
capacity of 200 megawatts (MW) and
100MW respectively. The construction
works will start in April 2016. In addition,
Iberdrola will build two wind farms, with
a capacity of 50MW and 105MW, and an
efficient natural gas-fired cogeneration
plant with a capacity of 51MW.
Mexico 2/Iberdrola to build
solar and wind plants
Mexico 1/energy permits multiplied
The concession of permits for energy
projects has increased from 40 awarded in
January-May 2014 up to a total of 241 in the
same period of 2015. These projects consist
of small production, co-generation, self-
efficiency, independent energy producers,
exports and imports. Mexico said that that
it had also received 20 requests for new
generation projects. On the other hand, the
electricity company Comision Federal de
Electricidad has announced that Colombian
energy firm Electricas de Medellin and
Mexican Edemtec have been awarded a
$38.50 million contract to implement two
transmission lines between the cities of
Campeche and Quintana Roo.