Electricity sector in Paraguay

However, despite the abundance of resources, the Paraguayan electricity system faces difficulty due to the lack of investment in transmission and distribution networks.

Paraguay is the only country in Latin America with almost 100 percent hydroelectric generation capacity (8,116 MW) in 2005.

Yacyretá, the second largest hydroelectric facility, has an installed capacity of 900 MW (11 percent), and is operated with Argentina.

[3] All of Paraguay's electricity for domestic consumption comes from a single facility, the binational 14 GW Itaipu hydroelectric dam.

Installed capacity shown for Itaipu and Yacyretá refers only to the Parguayan share in these plants.

[6] The table below shows rural coverage by Department for 2002: See also:Departments of Paraguay (including a map) Source: Pulfer, 2005 (from 2002 Census) Since 2004, the National Electricity Administration (ANDE) has been carrying out a Program to Recover Distribution Works under the Self-Help System (Sistema de Autoayuda), which aims at the regularization of all the low and medium voltage distribution networks.

This program, with a 10-year time-horizon, is implemented according to priorities defined by the conservation status of the networks involved.

[7] Transmission capacity is urgently needed to avoid a supply crisis [7] in a system in which quality and an adequate technical service is practically nonexistent.

The highest percentage of losses occurs in the National Interconnected System (SIN), while the remaining corresponds to the bi-national enterprises.

The Council usually sets lower tariffs to the ones proposed by ANDE, which leads to a lack of resources for the necessary investment for adequate performance of the electricity system.

[3] In April 1973, the governments of Paraguay and Brazil signed the Itaipu Treaty, by which it was decided to create a binational entity to hydroelectric use of the Paraná River.

[3] In 1971, Paraguay and Argentina created the River Parana Joint Commission (Comisión Mixta del Río Paraná, COMIP), which started to carry out different studies (pre-feasibility, environmental, etc.)

[3] Investments for maintenance and expansion of the necessary assets to provide electricity service have been executed with the support of multilateral credit institutions.

[12] Paraguay emitted 3.85 million tons of CO2 in 2005, which corresponds to just 0.61 tCO2 per capita annually, the lowest rate in the LAC region after Haiti's.

[14] The low emission factor of a fully hydroelectric system is most likely the reason for the absence of this type of projects in the electricity sector.