Honduras and El Salvador to complete power interconnection
An electric power transmission line between Honduras and El Salvador will be opened, thus completing the
interconnection of all Central American countries. The presidents of Honduras and El Salvador and Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB) president Enrique Iglesias will inaugurate the 147-km, 230-kV interconnection.
Central America should be fully interconnected by 2006 with completion of the 1,880-km Siepac project interconnecting
Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. A regional interconnection committee, a regulator
of the new Central American electricity market, and a regional operator to operate the network and administer
regional electricity market transactions are being created.
At the same time Mexico and Guatemala are making headway in their interconnection project in the framework of the
Plan Puebla-Panama infrastructure program (PPP). Representatives of the two countries met to analyse the program's
progress.
Mexico already has a transmission line to Tapachula, Chiapas state, while Guatemala has a line to the municipality of
Los Brillantes. To interconnect the two countries will require a 100-km, single-circuit 400-kV line, at a cost of
some $ 40 mm.
