Honduras is the first nation with 10% solar in its electricity mix
Honduran state power company ENEE reported that the 10.2% of the generation in the country’s electrical system corresponded to the total generation of the PV power plants in 2016. This places Honduras as the first non-island nation in the world to achieve a 10% share of solar energy in its national electricity mix.
Honduras also tops the charts as the country with the most installed PV capacity in Central America, with 433 MW of solar installed by the end of 2016, and is second in the whole of Latin America behind Chile, where more than 1 GW of PV has been installed.
Public company ENEE, whose electric system covers practically all of the system in Honduras, reports that last year its plants added 8,673 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of generation that was purchased privately. Of that, 885 GWh corresponded to purchases from PV plants. Overall, renewable energy accounted for 52 percent of the Honduran power grid.
Last year, solar energy made up close to 5% of the electricity mix in Honduras. In 2015, 388 MW were installed in the country and last year another 45 megawatts of photovoltaic power were added. Some of the largest PV projects in the region have been completed in Honduras, such as a 100 MW solar park in Nacaome.
A part of the PV capacity in Honduras corresponds to power plants that were installed in 2015 under an incentive tariff that was outlined in a program launched in 2013 by the Honduran government. However, as pv magazine has learned, there are problems with this incentive rate and payment to all of its investors has not been completed.
pv magazine will be publishing an article in our upcoming February print edition giving full details on the state of solar markets in Central America as a feature of the region’s transition to renewable energy.
The original article was published in pv magazine Latinoamérica in Spanish. It has been translated by Sam Pothecary.
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