As Owner’s Engineer to KMR Power Corporation, (K&M’s affiliated IPP development and investment company), K&M performed engineering, oversight and construction management services ranging from project conceptual design, through construction, plant startup and commissioning. K&M’s was responsible for technical support and oversight of the Engineering-Procurement-Construction (EPC) contractor. The 240 MW (ISO) Termovalle natural-gas fired combined cycle power plant was developed on an Independent Power Project basis using a Build-Own-Operate (BOO) financial structure. This project required the development of a first-of-its-kind fuel supply agreement for the first major pipeline in the Cauca region of Western Colombia. It involved an innovative financing structure with the local utility and achieved financial closure without a government guarantee. Termovalle was one of the few project-financed greenfield power projects in Latin America to achieve financial close and construction completion. 140 MW of power is sold to the local utility, with the remaining capacity and associated energy being sold to nearby industrial customers or on the open pool system (Bolsa).
The $150 million Termovalle projects consists of one 170 MW Siemens-Westinghouse 501F(C) advance gas turbine generator, one 70 MW Siemens-Westinghouse steam turbine, one heat recovery steam generator, a 4.2 m/s water treatment plant producing demineralized water, a circulating water system for condenser cooling, 115 kV substation and 1 km of 115 kV transmission to the substation. The project reached commercial operation in 1998.