Central & South America

The Mexican electric power industry is maintaining its dynamism, despite a collective perception of inactivity stemming from a lack of information from the federal government. And renewables are barely mentioned in the National Development Plan for 2019–2024 drawn up by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

In the early years of the 21st century, distributed generation systems in Latin America were mainly installed off-grid in remote rural areas, writes Maria Chea, solar analyst at IHS Markit. As the El Niño phenomenon and high oil prices continued to exacerbate high electricity prices and power shortages, governments began to turn their attention to distributed generation, including PV systems, to assuage strains on their national grid networks.

Atlas Renewable Energies has agreed to provide the Chilean unit of French energy giant Engie with 550 GWh annually for 15 years. The electricity will be supplied by the Sol del Desierto project Atlas is building in northern Chile.

The cumulative capacity of 5 MW-or-smaller solar systems has reached 958 MW in Brazil, according to consultancy Greener. Around a third of that capacity was installed in the first half of this year, with projects relying on half-cell and PERC modules making up the largest share.

The Swiss battery maker Leclanché will build a 35.6 MW / 44.2 MWh solar-plus-storage power plant, which will provide with clean power state-owned St.Kitts electric utility Skelec over a 20-year period. The new facility will be able to cover around a fourth of the archipelago’s total electricity demand.

Of the 38 new renewable energy projects that have been awarded, 13 are PV plants, representing 96.75 MW of capacity. The average price for solar was $57.58/MWh, and the minimum was $54.22/MWh.

The analyst has published its latest Energy Storage Outlook report and says large scale deployment will provide the majority of the 1,095 GW/2,850 GWh of battery storage worldwide in 2040, with prices driven down further by grid services demand and EVs.

With a 300 MW pipeline in the country that could potentially double in the near future, the Milanese business says Chile’s carbon-neutral ambition will maintain a strong market for solar.

According to the latest market forecast published by Wood Mackenzie, it seems that global PV installation figures will rise to 125 GW per year from 2020. Continued global capacity expansion will come in through a growing gigawatts-club.

Next up in pv magazine‘s unsung solar markets series is Brazil, where a new series of auctions for solar has provided much needed clarity to the sector, at least up until 2021.