The Palo Viejo hydroelectric project is located in the Municipality of San Juan Quetzal in the Departmento de Quiché in Guatemala. The project uses water from the Cotzal River and three of the Cotzal River’s tributaries, including Chipal, El Regadío, and Escondido. Power flow is diverted from the river and creeks at elevations between approximately 1200 m
and 1190 m and conveyed to a daily
storage-regulating reservoir equipped with dewatering and overflow structures. All river and creek intakes integrate a desander, except for the Escondido structure.

The primary conveyance system’s total length is approximately 18.5 km, including 17.1 km of open canal, 0.9 km of free flow tunnelling and 0.5 km of inverted siphons at Chipal and Regadio creek crossings. The reservoir operating level is between elevations of 1185.3 m and 1175.8 m, with normal operating level at 1185 m. From the reservoir, the penstock intake structure provides control of the power flow entering a penstock conveyance system having a total length of 1450 m, including 320 m of low-pressure buried pipe, 530 m of lined tunnel, 460 m high-pressure surface penstock pipe and 80-m vertical lined pressure shaft down to a 40-m horizontal alignment containing a bifurcation upstream of the powerhouse.

The surface powerhouse houses two vertical Francis turbine generating units. The draft tube tailrace discharges to the river’s normal water elevation of 805 m so that a total gross head of 380 m is available for generation.

Total design flow of the generating units is 25.5 m³/s and installed capacity is estimated at 84 MW at the turbine.

Scope of Services
Hatch Energy predecessor company, Acres International, is undertaking basic and definition level design and cost estimation for the development of the Palo Viejo hydroelectric project on the Cotzal River in Guatemala.

The work includes:

• Phase 1 - Preparation of pre-construction drawings and documents for all project structures, and technical support to Owner as required during negotiation with the selected general civil construction contractor
• Phase 2 - Project engineering for construction
• Phase 3 - Technical support during project construction