The Norwegian company Fountain Intertrade Corp., which was granted concession, construction and operation rights in the 58-MW Bajo Frío Hydroelectric Project by the Public Utilities Authority of the Republic of Panama, has chosen FCC to build the dam. The construction project, which will carry a price tag of approximately 86 million dollars, will be completed in 33 months.

The site lies in the province of Chiriquí, near the border with Costa Rica, between Breñón and Santa Cruz (subdivisions of the Renacimiento district) and Gómez (a subdivision of the Bugaba district) in Panama.

The goal of the project is to take advantage of the generating potential of the waterfall on the Chiriquí Viejo River, which has its source in the vicinity of Baru Volcano, which is roughly 3,500 metres tall. It is estimated that the river will produce 58 MW of energy.

The project calls for the construction of a gravity dam 56 metres tall and 405 metres long along its crest. The dam will be built of blocks constructed using conventional concrete and roller-compacted concrete (RCC) (right bank), riprap (central riverbed) and clay materials (left bank).

The dam will have two spillways, a 90-metre-long overfall spillway capable of draining at a rate of 2,100 cubic metres a second and a controlled spillway with a double pipe measuring 6.00 by 5.00 metres, capable of venting 700 cubic metres a second. A collection structure is built into the dam and houses two intakes designed to accommodate incoming water at a rate of 50 cubic metres a second.

The project includes three generator rooms: La Potra, which will house two turbogenerators containing Kaplan turbines and horizontal-axis synchronous generators with a total generating capacity of 28 MW; an auxiliary generator room, for a single turbogenerator unit made up of a Francis turbine and a horizontal-axis synchronous generator, generating 2.10 MW; and lastly Salsipuedes, which will house two turbogenerators containing Kaplan turbines and horizontal-axis synchronous generators producing a total of 28 MW.

The project will also include improvements to the dam's access roads, a bridge over the Chiriquí River, a 2.1-kilometre-long conducting channel, the forebay and the construction of the intake for the Salsipuedes generator room, located at the end of the water conveyance channel and a discharge channel approximately 110 metres long, through which water will be returned to the Chiriquí Viejo River.

FCC's dam-building experience

FCC Construcción has a vast amount of experience building dams of different types, including vibrated-concrete dams, compacted-concrete dams (One of the first CC dams ever built in Spain, Los Canchales, was constructed by FCC) and earthfill dams. The main dams on FCC Construcción's record, including dams raised during the last ten years and those under construction right now, are: