Construction begins on the largest solar PV project in Central America

Share

Gauss Energía has announced the beginning of construction on a 61 MW solar PV project which it is developing in Southern Honduras. Isolux Corsán is providing engineering, procurement and construction services for the Aura Solar II, which it expects to complete in the middle of 2015.

When complete, the plant will comprise roughly 200,000 multicrystalline silicon PV modules, over an area of 150 hectares in the region of Choluteca. Gauss notes that Choluteca has some of the strongest natural conditions for solar in Central America, with an average radiation of 5.5 kWh per square meter per day.

Aura Solar II will represent a total investment of US$120 million. This includes private investment from Mexico and Honduras, with financing from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Bancomext and German development bank KfW's German Investment and Development Company (DEG). The project is also supported by Honduras' National Electricity Company (ENEE), with which it holds a 20-year power purchase agreement.

This is the second piece of big project news to come out of Honduras this week, following SunEdison's announcement that it had secured funding for 82 MW of PV projects in the nation.

“Honduras has been a hotbed for PV project development in Central America, with a pipeline of over 600 MW of solar projects according to GTM Research's Latin America PV Playbook,” notes GTM Research Solar Analyst Adam James.

“Developers have been drawn to the market by the lucrative per megawatt hour bonus payment offered to the first 400 MW of projects to begin commercial operation, as well as an attractive set of tax incentives.”

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.

Popular content

Longi introduces 665 W HPBC photovoltaic modules

11 October 2024 The Chinese PV manufacturer said its new module series has a power conversion efficiency of up to 24.8% and temperature coefficient is -0.26% per C.

Share

Leave a Reply

Please be mindful of our community standards.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.

Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.

You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.

Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.