Ecuador held a ceremony Tuesday to celebrate the successful completion of a headrace tunnel for its Coca Codo Sinclair (CCS) hydroelectric station.
The tunnel boring machine emerged out successfully on March 27,completing the 24.78-km concrete-lined headrace tunnel and the project's tunneling work well ahead of schedule.
The CCS hydroelectric facility, currently under construction, is the biggest energy project in Ecuador's history. It is located in the Amazon Basin between the provinces of Napo and Sucumbios, not too far from capital Quito.
The station is estimated to produce an average of 8.63 GWh per year and supply about 44 percent of the country's electricity.
The ambitious project is part of Ecuador's new energy plan. Its goal is to replace thermoelectric energy from fossil fuels with renewable hydroelectric energy, and energy imports from Peru and Colombia with self-sufficient energy production from renewable sources.
The developer and owner of the project is Cocasinclair EP, a state-owned special-purpose enterprise established in 2010. The station is constructed by Chinese company Sinohydro and principally financed by the Export-Import Bank of China.