San Jose-headquartered jointly owned subsidiary, National Ammonia Corporation (NAC), will develop projects initially in Costa Rica and later across Central America and the Caribbean.
Cavendish is the renewable energy arm of Costa Rica’s Grupo Purdy.
With near-100% renewable electricity and a favourable geographical position with ports on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts separated by a 200km land bridge, Costa Rica is “a logistically excellent location”, the companies said.
Olivier Mussat, chief executive of Atome, said NAC would “roll out and replicate” the business model of its 120MW Villeta green hydrogen project in Paraguay, which is powered under a 100% renewable power purchase agreement with national grid operator, ANDE.
The grid operator has invested an annual average of $300 million in electricity infrastructure over the past three years and aims to exceed that amount this year.
Atome recently awarded a front-end engineering design contract for the Villeta project to a consortium of Casale, Urbas Energy-Ingeser and TSK, with a final investment decision due in the second quarter of 2023.
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