15 December 2011: The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has announced the approval of a US$20 million grant to complete funding needed to refurbish Haiti’s 40-year-old Péligre Hydroelectric Plant. The project will enable Haiti to restore and preserve the plant’s original installed capacity of 54 megwatts (MW) by rehabilitating its three turbines, its aging electromechanical equipment, communications and control systems, the insulation of its alternators and an external substation. Currently, the plant only operates at half that, forcing Haiti to rely on thermoelectric plants that run on expensive, imported hydrocarbons. The plant also serves to control floods and supply water to the Artibonite Valley, Haiti’s main farming region.

The US$20 million IDB grant supplements other funding for the same project, including a prior US$12.5 million grant, a US$13.7 million grant from the German development agency KfW, and US$15 million in concessional financing from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) Fund for International Development (OFID). [IDB Press Release]