OREANDA-NEWS. August 15, 2012. The President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, opened the Bajo Grande thermal power plant, with a capacity of 100 megawatts (MW). The plant is located in the Canada de Urdaneta municipality, in the western state of Zulia.

The Venezuelan Head of State highlighted the importance of power projects carried out by the Bolivarian government in the last 12 years: “If the Revolution had not arrived on time, Venezuela would be turned off; we would not have electricity, let alone energy to develop energy-intensive industries as well as railways, hospitals, schools, new housing units and cities”.

The power generation project for the period 2012-2019 was presented during the event. The project includes La Guajira and Bajo wind farms, with an estimated production of 3,000 MW to supplement the national electricity grid as well as a power distribution project which will allow improving energy supply and the quality of the system thanks to the addition of 4 power substations in different areas of the state of Zulia.

Meanwhile, Jesus Luongo, general manager of the Paraguana Refining Center  (CRP) said that the state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) is currently managing 28 power generation projects nationwide, of which 19 are for the oil industry’s self-sufficiency: “the old PDVSA took advantage of cheap energy generated by Guri (hydroelectric plant),  increased oil production and built new facilities but it never built its own power generation (plants); now we are building our own generation (portfolio) which will allow to use a huge amount of energy for the population, particularly in (the state of) Zulia”.

Luongo also said that current PDVSA demand in the state of Zulia totals 377 MW. In this sense, he said that 9 power projects to generate 1,423 MW are being developed, of which 1,068 MW will be used for oil production and the other 355 MW to contribute to the national electricity system.