Revista Nueva Minería

Fernando Reitich said that the conditions put by the Justice changed the rules of the game and might even imply that the proposed mitigation by the electric company were to materialize otherwise.

CAP is reassessing the installation in one of the chimneys of the Huasco Pellet Plant of an emissions abatement equipment, which Endesa Chile offered as a mitigation measure to unlock the Punta Alcalde thermoelectric project (740 MW), located in the same commune in the Atacama Region.

“We are now re-evaluating this project and do not have an answer to the new variables that emerged in the process and that are different from what was originally proposed,” said yesterday the group’s general manager, Fernando Reitich during the shareholders meeting.

Subsequently, the executive explained that this review responds to the decision of the Supreme Court that in January upheld the approval Initiative of the Enersis’s subsidiary by the Committee of Ministers, which covered in the additional mitigations proposed by the electric company reversed the initial rejection of the environmental authority.

Reitich said that the pronouncement of Justice included additional conditions that represent a “reversal” of the project, whose terms of materialization were being negotiated by the steel and the generator companies.

“This business of Punta Alcalde began many years ago and was rejected by the community, later was adopted by the Committee of Ministers and then recently, was ratified by the Supreme Court, with a number of new conditions that have nothing to do with the project which was thought four years ago then, thing to do is evaluate these new conditions, “he said.

The CAP group’s executive added that one of the requirements of the Supreme is to measure the air in a different area from the fireplace (where, he said, CAP emits half of what was authorized by the authority) and zone in which converge discharges from various existing sources in that city. “that means that now almost the issue of whether the electrostatic precipitator is the condition for Punta Alcalde to work and, besides that, what the court wants is to pass beyond such thing. Besides, this is not our problem, it belongs to Endesa”, said the executive.-

Reitich noted that at this time are still understanding the implications of the demands raised by the Supreme and from this studying the project, “because previously evaluated with rules that were different and that meant that we put a number of chips and now could mean do the project differently, putting fewer chips or even not play “exemplified Reitich.

Source: Diario Financiero