Nicaragua extends fiscal incentives for renewables by another five years

The National Assembly of Nicaragua has approved a reform of the Law 532 for the Promotion of Electric Generation with Renewable Sources, which extends the fiscal incentives for renewable energy for another five years.

The tax benefits, which were expected to be terminated at the end of 2017, will now be available until January 1, 2023. The reform has been promoted by the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega.

“There are advanced studies of projects and assessment of the country’s renewable sources which have made it possible to identify potential sites where renewable generation projects can be developed, for example for wind and solar energy,” said deputy Jenny Martinez Gomez.

In its statement, the National Assembly said the Minister of Energy and Mines, Salvador Mansell, has recently informed the Parliament that among the renewable energy projects currently being developed, studies in the River Basin Grande de Matagalpa are being conducted by a German company, and financed by the IDB with Nordic funds, for the generation of approximately 700 MW.

“Another two projects,” the statement continued, “are being evaluated in Mojolca and Copalar Bajo and are expected to be financed with the same funding sources.”

The National Assembly of Nicaragua already approved in June a reform of the Electricity Industry Act, Law 272, the rapid processing of which had been requested by Ortega himself. It authorizes the country’s power distributors Disnorte and Dissur to buy electricity from small producers.

This reform empowered the Ministry of Energy and Mines to regulate the net metering scheme through a regulation on Distributed Generation.

Through its new policies for renewables, the government of the Central American country aims to increase the share of energy generation based on renewable resources from approximately 55% in 2018, to 64% in 2023, and 73% in 2030.

Update: in the first version of the news, published on Dec. 7, in the title it was written Guatemala instead of Nicaragua. We apologize for this mistake.