The Dominican Public Electricity Corporation (CDEEE) has begun the pre-purging the boilers at Punta Catalina Thermoelectric Power Plant in southern Peravia province. This is a necessary step to insure maximum efficiency of the boilers before they are connected to the generating turbines. The coal-fired facility will purge the boiler tubes every four or five hours under pressure, and the process will take some three weeks, it is reported. At the end of this period, the first “generation tests” will take place.
According to the Twitter account of the CDEEE, the Punta Catalina generating station is supposed to go online with 200 MW of coal-fired power towards the end of January or the beginning of February 2019. Ruben Jimenez Bichara, the executive vice-president of the CDEEE, said late last month that he expects that Punta Catalina will be producing those 200 MW by late January.
The facility is being built by Odebrecht-Tecnimont-Estrella consortium at the highly discussed cost of more than US$1.9 billion, and is supposed to contribute 752 MW to the national grid. This is more than any single facility in the country at the present time.
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Diario Libre
10 December 2018
