El Salvador has begun to export to countries like Guatemala and Costa Rica. Only in the year 2022, energy exports had a growth of 1,860 %according to data from the Central Reserve Bank (BCR).
El Salvador’s energy exports have as their main destinations Honduras and Nicaragua who have made large purchases.
The operations reflect that the transactions in Regional Electricity Market (MER) maintain a constant dynamism, and in which Honduras and Nicaragua are emerging as the large buyers, followed by Costa Rica and Guatemala, while El Salvador and Panama reflect an importer and exporter behavior.
Daniel Alvarez, who is the director of the DGEHM, indicated that the dynamism in exports is due to the fact that El Salvador has managed to have the most competitive prices in the region, and that the investment carried out by the Government of President Nayib Bukele in recent years has allowed an increase in the generation of renewables. This price competitiveness has also allowed El Salvador to be more efficient in the MER.
The official also explained that exports are made based on the energy surpluses, attending in the first instance the local demand. Regarding imports, he stated that when the country imports energy, it does not mean that El Salvador does not have the capacity to generate, but that plants are turned off and the surplus is brought from elsewhere ».
Álvarez commented that the rise of the public and private investment in the construction of plants and power stations for renewable sources has allowed the increase in production.
“Now there are more photovoltaic plants, the wind farm, the natural gas plant of Energías del Pacifico, and we have an increase in the generation of hydroelectric and geothermal energy. There are a lot of energy and with the prices of the countrywe have the capacity to export”, he highlighted.
He added that currently Guatemala It has also bought power from the country, due to a problem at a coal plant, which caused the neighboring country’s power prices to skyrocket.
The growth of exports
According to data from the Central Reserve Bank (BCR), only in 2022the energy sector grew by 14.4%, while energy exports reported a growth of 1,860%, that is, satisfying internal demand and energy from other countries.
“It is mainly because El Salvador has changed its energy matrixand now 76% of the energy produced in the country is based on renewable sources, which lowers the cost of production and is transferred to consumers”, recently indicated Douglas Rodríguez, president of the BCR.
Renewable energy generation totaled a 58.82 % until March, where 34.98% has been produced by the Lempa River Hydroelectric Executive Commission (CEL) and LAGEO, according to data from the general energy directorate.
In this sense, 17.57% of the country’s energy matrix is made up of hydroelectric; 17.41% by geothermal: 15.44% by biomass; 6.91% for solar; and 1.49% for wind power.
Government authorities assured that they will continue leveraging power generation with renewable sourceswhich includes the construction of two new geothermal plants and the second government solar plant.
Fuente: https://forbescentroamerica.com
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