Central & South America

A new U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantee will help finance 200 MW of solar and 285 MW of grid-scale storage on the island.

Panama has canceled an auction it announced in February for 500 MW of renewable energy capacity. It would have been the country’s first renewable energy tender in a decade and the first in Central America to include battery storage systems.

The rapid growth of renewable energy in Brazil has not been matched by transmission and distribution infrastructure. Connection restrictions for both “distributed-” and centralized-generation sites are leading companies to adopt new strategies to maintain expansion, reports pv magazine Brasil’s Livia Neves.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, reports that Rio de Janeiro recorded the sunniest June in over 18 years, with solar irradiance 15% above the long-term average. This was part of a band of higher than average sunshine extending through Bolivia, Paraguay, and parts of Brazil. Conversely, southern Argentina saw an irradiance drop of up to 30% below the long-term average as it experienced its cloudiest June in the same period.

Peru’s Ministry of Energy and Mines (MINEM) says the country installed 115.5 MW of new solar capacity in the first half of 2024, bringing the nation’s total installed PV capacity to around 400 MW.

Despite global overcapacity, several factors may contribute to a slight increase in solar panel prices in Brazil, with shipping costs and quotas for fiscal exemptions on imported PV modules playing a key role.

A review of indoor PV cell technologies by an international research team delves into recent progress, characterization, and design strategies used to develop highly efficient cells. The study presents 250 commercial and laboratory devices, as well as applications and performance reporting.

Madrid-headquartered independent power producer (IPP) Grenergy has reached financial close on the first two phases of its Oasis de Atacama solar and battery energy storage hybrid project in Chile.

Researchers in Spain have created a novel PV forecasting method that uses only direct radiation as a parameter. They found it to be “comparable, if not superior” to four established forecasting techniques. The method could help homeowners with PV systems decide when to use electricity-intensive appliances and cleaning systems.

Chilean researchers from Universidad Mayor say that the 10.8 MW La Colonia photovoltaic plant, built by IM2 Solar Chile and Enel Green Power, provides a habitat for birds.