Paraguay Electricity
Figure 7. Transportation and Hydroelectric Facilities, 1988
Itaipú hydroelectric power plant
Courtesy United States Department of State
The electricity subsector underwent fabulous growth in the
1980s, making it the most important segment of the energy sector.
Once almost entirely dependent on thermal and diesel generation of
electricity, the country by the late 1980s had shifted almost
entirely to hydroelectricity. Electricity, gas, and water together
accounted for 2.8 percent of GDP in 1986. The shift to hydropower
started in 1968 upon the completion of the nation's first major
hydroelectric plant, the Acaray plant, which supplied almost all of
the country's electricity in the 1970s and most of the 1980s.
Although the Acaray plant was expanded in the mid- to late 1970s,
its role in the economy was overshadowed by the construction of two
of Latin America's largest public-sector projects, the Itaipú and
Yacyretá hydroelectric plants. In addition to these plants, the
government had finalized plans with Argentina for another plant--
Corpus--to be located between Itaipú and Yacyretá
(see
fig. 7).
Other plants also were planned downstream of Yacyretá.
Despite the country's tremendous installed capacity and
potential capacity for electricity, domestic demand and access to
electricity lagged well behind supply and remained quite limited in
the late 1980s. Not until the early 1960s did the government
introduce the first serious energy policies to improve rural
electrification. Electricity consumption increased 10 percent
annually in the 1960s and upwards of 16 percent per year in the
1970s. General access to electricity improved from a low 11 percent
in the 1970s to over 40 percent by the mid-1980s, but with
considerable regional disparities. Approximately 62 percent of
people living in the Central Department had electricity compared
with only 37 percent of the eastern border region residents and
fewer than 1 percent in the Chaco. Asunción accounted for nearly
two-thirds of the nation's electricity consumption.
The electricity system was controlled by the National Power
Company (Administración Nacional de Electricidad--ANDE), an
autonomous, decentralized, public utility. Created in 1949, ANDE
was reorganized in 1964 and made a financially independent entity
attached to the Ministry of Public Works and Communications.
Electricity was expensive for most Paraguayans, and power outages
were common. Rapid growth in electrification added approximately
500 kilometers of electric lines per year to the grid in the 1980s,
and reliability improved.
Data as of December 1988
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