Challenges
- Customer unable to connect to power grid due to infrastructure delays
- Limited road access to transport plant equipment
- Rigorous EHS requirements
Background
In 2005, Cementos Progreso (Cempro) – a century-old family owned cement and aggregate company in Guatemala – acquired the San Gabriel estate, a property with an estimated 50 years of limestone reserves to feed a planned cement manufacturing facility. Throughout the construction of the cement plant, issues delayed the installation of two transmission lines that would connect the manufacturing facility to the local power grid. As a result, Cempro began to evaluate interim solutions that could serve as a bridge until it could gain access to the power grid.
Solution
In late 2016, as the cement plant neared completion, APR Energy was awarded a contract for a 10-megawatt plant to provide the generating capacity needed to commission the cement facility and enable Cempro to begin production even without grid access. Despite holidays and strikes that slowed entry of plant equipment through customs, as well as limited road access to transport the eight diesel power modules and associated plant systems to the site, APR Energy successfully commissioned its plant in early 2017. APR Energy’s full-service solution includes operation and maintenance of the power plant, and full compliance with Cempro’s rigorous environmental, health and safety (EHS) requirements.
Outcome
Construction of the San Gabriel cement plant is nearing completion, and commercial operation is expected to begin in late 2017. At full production, it will be Cempro’s largest manufacturing plant with a capacity of 4,500 tons of cement clinker per day. With APR Energy serving as its sole source of electricity as it prepares for commissioning, the cement plant soon will be providing an essential ingredient for construction in Guatemala while enabling Cempro to meet its corporate social responsibility (CSR) goals related to community development, training and care of the environment. APR Energy is supporting those efforts by hiring employees from the local community to install, operate and maintain the power plant, and by embracing the customer’s requirements for environmental, health and safety performance.