CTD is nearing financial closing of $2.5 billion DR-PR power line.

By THE STAR STAFF

Caribbean Transmission Development (CTD) is nearing financial close for its proposed $2.5 billion power interconnection between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, the company said at a sector event in Santo Domingo late last week.

The Hostos project includes a 500-megawatt (MW) combined-cycle power plant, 90 kilometers (km) of overhead 345-kilovolt (kV) alternating current (AC) transmission line and 150 km of subsea 320 kV high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line.

CTD project director Tirso Selman said the company is in the final stages of closing financing for the initiative.

Selman pointed to the recent granting of a U.S. presidential permit for Hostos by the Department of Energy (DOE) as a key milestone.

The permit only authorizes the construction, maintenance and operation of electricity transmission facilities at the U.S. border. CTD must still secure other federal, state and local permits and authorizations.

CTD is working with Siemens Energy on the project. Construction would begin next year, with operations expected in 2031.

According to CTD, Hostos would cut Puerto Rico’s generation cost to $155/megawatt-hour (MWh) from $214/MWh for the current fleet.

Former Puerto Rico Energy Bureau (PREB) associate commissioner Ángel R. Rivera de la Cruz said meanwhile that “there is a regulatory tangle that must be carefully unraveled.”

“The Hostos project faces a particular complexity: it would operate under three different regulatory frameworks,” Rivera de la Cruz wrote in a Microjuris post.

He said the project would fall under oversight from the Dominican Republic’s national energy commission CNE, the PREB and the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, in addition to the DOE.