LATIN AMERICA

Latin America is becoming one of the most attractive regions throughout the world with significant investment in renewable energy in recent years. From 2010-2015 investment exceeded $80 billion USD. In 2016, total renewable energy investment (excluding hydropower) was nearly $20 billion (USD), or close to 7% of the global total.

Investment is expected to continue as an increasing number of Latin American countries set renewable energy goals, effective use of regulatory instruments, auctions, blending mandates for biofuels, and other tax and financial incentives for project deployment and manufacturing. Furthermore, the demand for electricity will continue to increase rapidly due to the ongoing demographic and socio-economic structural changes in many Latin American countries.

Historically, Central America has been powered mostly by hydropower and oil, but since 2005, new reforms have been decreasing the region’s dependence on oil.  They have one of the largest share of renewables as a percentage of energy; upto 56% in some areas.

The structure of Central American energy legislation has changed dramatically, where these reforms have created new independent regulatory agencies, unbundled and privatized large state-owned utilities, and established competitive electricity markets in most countries.

Existing regional wind power installations currently use less than one per cent of the available resource potential, and most Central American countries boast two to three times the annual solar radiation of world solar energy leaders such as Germany and Italy.

Most countries in the region have strong policy mechanisms and regulatory measures in place for advancing renewables, such as tax incentives, net metering, feed-in tariffs, and renewable energy production laws. Today, Central America has one of the largest share of renewables as a percentage of energy (up to 56 per cent in some areas), together with one of the most diverse mixture of renewable generation, composed of solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, and hydro.

Noble Generation established its presence in Latin America in 2016 by opening its office in Nicaragua, followed by two Mexican projects in 2017 and two Argentinian projects in 2018. The Executive Team has more than 30 years’ experience in the region, with strong bilingual and multicultural skills.