Central & South America

Electricity bill payers in nations as diverse as Germany, Greece, India and China should be aware new solar projects can now generate electricity cheaper for them than legacy coal and gas-fired plants.

With ‘shovel-ready’ projects across India, Africa and Latin America in line for a mix of grants, cheap loans, equity investment and financial guarantees from this year, the two bodies hope to trigger $20 billion in total funding and bring reliable power to a billion people.

A Spanish renewable energy company has installed its first, pilot mobile PV unit at a new detention center in Chile.

Projects not exceeding 5 MW in size will be entitled to participate in the procurement exercise. Selected developers will be granted a 15-year PPA and will have to start commercial operation on January 1, 2023.

Energy efficiency, electrification of heating and transport, and the provision of clean cooking facilities are all going in the wrong direction as the Covid crisis deprived millions in sub-Saharan Africa of electricity use, according to a report by the IEA, IRENA, WHO, World Bank and UN Statistics Division.

The 50 MW Highview Enlasa project will be located in Diego de Almagro, in Chile’s Atacama Region.

The system will power the broadband transport networks. The solar panels are “made with 100% Venezuelan engineering.”

Brazil has installed 1 GW of new PV capacity in the past month alone. The distributed-generation solar segment and bilateral PPAs for large-scale PV plants are driving the market.

Votorantim Energia and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board have decided to invest US$35 million in the 68.9 MWac project.

The sheer volume of new power lines which will be required to accommodate the rising tide of solar installations ensures copper has been included by the International Energy Agency on its list of minerals which must keep flowing if the energy transition is to stay on course. And it’s not production that’s the potential bottleneck.