Renewable energy in Honduras

The decrees include tax breaks to developers and a secure buyer for energy at prices equivalent to the system’s short-term marginal cost.

The national integrated utility ENEE, which is the default buyer, must pay a premium (10 percent of the same short-run marginal cost) for the electricity generated when the installed capacity is below 50 MW.

[1] The penetration of renewable energy technologies into rural electrification programs is still lagging behind due to a lack of clear and consistent policy framework in the field.

Modern renewables, which exclude traditional biomass practices like burning wood or agricultural residues, accounted for 13.7%, while coal made up just 0.3%.[2]Currently[when?

Specifically, private producers are benefiting from fiscal incentives, tax exemptions, and the recognition of 10 percent of the short-term marginal cost per kWh as a premium.

Fiscal incentives for small and medium-size hydropower have created a bias toward this type of development and against other renewable options, such as the use of photovoltaic, wind, and geothermal systems.

[1] This project, sponsored by Mesoamerica Energy, is located in Cerro de Hula, in the municipalities of Santa Ana and San Buenaventura, 20 km south of Tegucigalpa.

[14] This means that in just one year the country has leapfrogged previous rankings to become first in the world for PV power penetration at that time.

[14] In 2015, Honduras ranked as the second largest producer of solar electricity in Latin America (behind Chile, but ahead of Mexico).

The largest of them is called Platanares, in the Department of Copan, which began operations in 2011 with an installed capacity of 40.5 MW and a generation of 354.8 GWh per year.