The Agroforestry Company of this eastern Cuban province is preparing to take part in the construction of a bioelectric plant that would provide some 133,920 megawatts (MW) of electricity per year from marabou biomass.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- Now the project is going through the meetings between the specialists in charge of manufacturing and assembling the technology, the officials of the Trading Agroforestal Company S.A., and the authorities of the sector in the province.
The Council of Ministers recently approved the joint venture that will build a plant in the municipality of Jobabo, which raises the prospect of energy development in this part of the country. The idea was born in 2016 when the Agroforestry Business Group became interested in starting businesses with foreign investments for the production of electric energy using marabou biomass.
THE PLANS
The new plant will be operated by the mixed company Biomas Electric S.A. It will cover 11.42 hectares and will be located more than one kilometer from the town of El Lavao, in the aforementioned municipality of Las Tunas. It will use as raw material the biomass of the thorny plant so that, in its 20 years of operation, it will produce about two million 678 thousand 400 MW of electric energy, according to the estimates of the involved parties.
The investment will cost approximately $76.7 million convertible pesos (CUC), considering the costs of the joint venture project and financing to acquire the means and equipment needed by the Agroforestry Company.
According to the report provided by the foreign party in the matter, the technology will be designed and built by the same firm that was in charge of the first bioelectric plant in Cuba that already operates in the province of Ciego de Avila. This company will also prepare the basic engineering project in accordance with Cuban standards, as well as the assembly of the work until it is put into operation.
THE OPPORTUNITIES
Those responsible for the work point out that the Agroforestry Company will benefit from approximately 104 million CUC from the sale of biomass to Biomas Electric S.A., during the entire period of the project, boosting its development program until 2030, with the eventual injection of capital resulting from this business.
In addition, from the moment it starts up, it will provide, among its induced works, about 2.2 million CUC for the construction of a 29 km long line between the city of Las Tunas and El Lavao, necessary to carry out the delivery of the energy.
When it is fully operational, it will allow the reorganization of all the electrical networks in the municipality of Jobabo, and will provide more than 500 jobs, 74 of them in industry and the rest in support and forestry tasks, which would have a positive impact on more than 2,250 families.
In terms of environmental indicators, it would mean the improvement of the municipality's forest coverage, since it is planned to promote around 12 thousand hectares of energy forests; and also the use of water from the dam with the same name, currently unusable for agriculture due to its high content of heavy metals, the plant will require 800 cubic meters of the liquid annually.
The community in question would also benefit from the obligatory improvement to the road network of almost the entire municipality, as it would be necessary to maintain it in good condition to transport the harvested biomass to the plant. Additionally, each year it would free more than 2,500 hectares of land from marabou that could be used for food production.
HOWEVER...
The own research carried out here and the experiences derived from the Ciego de Ávila plant indicate that much will have to be transformed in Las Tunas to honor the raw material requirements of a bioelectric that, unlike its counterpart in the center of the country, would not be associated with a sugar plant.
In this regard, Jorge Luis Padilla Carralero, director of Development and Business of the Agroforestry Company here, stressed that the forestry entity must ensure the harvest and transportation of 22 and a half tons of biomass per hour, or about 162 thousand tons per year, which will imply the urgency of harvesting at least four thousand hectares of the invasive plant per year.
In response to this plan, the executive foresees, starting in the first year, to plant a minimum of 1,500 hectares of energy forests, with fast-growing species, seeking to maintain the sustainability of the bioelectric plant starting in the ninth year of operation.
There is still a long way to go; however, the construction of a bioelectric plant would undoubtedly place Las Tunas in a privileged position within the Cuban commitment to renewable energy sources, since the largest wind farm in the nation is being built in this province. Cuba has not given up its dream that by 2030, 24 percent of electricity generation will be from renewable sources, among which biomass will play a majority role.
