Central America Fails to Take Advantage of Energy from Sun, Wind and Earth
Central America, a place of abundant wind and sunshine, is still chained to thermal power and large-scale hydroelectricity and has failed to include local communities in clean, environmentally-friendly and less invasive projects. Although the region has been trying for years to increase the proportion of renewables in its energy mix, an average of 36 percent […]
LanguagesESPAÑOL FRANÇAIS DEUTSCH ITALIANO JAPANESE NEDERLANDS PORTUGUÊS SUOMI SVENSKA SWAHILI TÜRKÇE Wednesday, May 20, 2026 INTER PRESS SERVICE News Agency News and Views from the Global South Africa Asia-Pacific Europe Latin America & the Caribbean Middle East & North Africa North America Global Home Development & Aid Aid Education Energy Health Food & Agriculture Humanitarian Emergencies Poverty & SDGs Population Economy & Trade Financial Crisis Green Economy Labour Natural Resources Trade & Investment Cooperatives Environment Advancing Deserts Biodiversity Climate Change Green Economy Water & Sanitation Human Rights Armed Conflicts Crime & Justice Democracy Indigenous Rights LGBTQ Migration & Refugees Press Freedom Religion Global Governance Civilisations Find Alliances Eye on the IFIs Global Geopolitics Globalisation Peace South-South United Nations South-South G77 Regional Alliances Southern Aid & Trade Civil Society Active Citizens World Social Forum Conferences Gender Gender Violence Women & Economy Women & Climate Change Women’s Health Gender Identity Women in Politics Active Citizens, Civil Society, Climate Change, Development & Aid, Economy & Trade, Editors' Choice, Energy, Environment, Featured, Green Economy, Headlines, Integration and Development Brazilian-style, Latin America & the Caribbean, Poverty & SDGs, Projects, Regional Categories, TerraViva United Nations Energy Central America Fails to Take Advantage of Energy from Sun, Wind and Earth By Diego Arguedas Ortiz Reprint | | Print | |En español In 2011 the Coopesantos cooperative installed a wind park in the mountains of La Paz and Casamata, some 50 km southeast of the capital of Costa Rica. With an installed capacity of 12.7 MW and 15 wind turbines, the wind park supplies 120 communities with ties to the cooperative. Credit: Diego Arguedas Ortiz/IPSSAN JOSE, Jul 29 2015 (IPS) - Central America, a place of abundant wind and sunshine, is still chained to thermal power and large-scale hydroelectricity and has failed to include local communities in clean, environmentally-friendly and less invasive projects. Although the region has been trying for years to increase the proportion of renewables in its energy mix, an average of 36 percent of its electricity is produced by enormous plants fired by coal and other fossil fuels. Decision-makers in Central America continue to disregard the region’s enormous potential in wind and solar power, which could reduce carbon emissions while empowering vulnerable communities in remote areas by providing them with electricity. “In general terms, the Central American region is not taking advantage of its potential, principally because investment channels have not been chosen,” Javier Mejía, the renewable energies official at the non-governmental Humboldt Centre in Nicaragua, told IPS. He explained that, unlike the megaprojects of the past, “solar and wind energy initiatives could be undertaken in isolated areas and could serve small population groups which the power grid has a hard time reaching.” The region uses only around one percent of its wind power potential, according to an analysis of the upcoming Estado de la Región report, produced by the Consejo Nacional de Rectores (CONARE), which groups Costa Rica’s four public universities. A group of journalists had access to the energy results of the Estado de la Región report, which analyses sustainable human development in Central America and whose next edition will come out in 2016. The report says the countries of this region have two to three times more annual solar radiation than Germany, the global leader in solar power. And it adds that 85 percent of this region’s geothermal power potential – much of it difficult to access – is unexplored. The Estado de la Región report cites statistics from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama, which have a combined population of 45 million people. The Cachí hydroelectric plant, which was built in the 1960s in central Costa Rica and whose capacity was expanded in 2014-2015 from 103 to 150 MW. Credit: Diego Arguedas Ortiz/IPS For decades, the countries of Central America have depended for electricity on rivers and large-scale fossil fuel power stations, where a majority of the investment comes from private corporations. In 2014, hydropower plants produced 45 percent of the region’s electricity and fossil fuels 36 percent, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). The Humboldt Centre’s Mejía said one weakness of this region is that “many countries depend on foreign investment that often gives rise to megaprojects which do not resolve the energy problem, and cause social and environmental damage.” A 2014 study by the non-governmental Observatory of Multinationals in Latin America (OMAL) found that 11 private companies – only three of them Central American – control 40 percent of power generation in Central America, compared to the 35.7 percent particip...