International.
Global investment in renewable energy was US$285.9 billion in 2015, according to information from the Renewable Energy Investment Trends Report. Of that amount, China, India and Brazil contributed $156 billion.
The report by the Collaborative Center for Climate Finance and Sustainable Energy of UNEP (the United Nations Environment Program) and the specialized publicationBloomberg New Energy Finance, points out that in Latin America, the largest investments were in Mexico, Chile and Uruguay, worth US $ 1,000 million, excluding Brazil.
Chile is the country that contributes the most to the development of solar energy in South America, thanks in part to its auction program. For its part, Honduras joins the list as the fourth country that invested the most in this aspect with values of about US $ 500 million.
"Perhaps this is partly because it needs more energy capacity and is looking for technologies to harness natural resources," McCrone says, adding that even though the price of oil has fallen, the cost of generating electricity with renewables has also dropped significantly.
"Now investing in solar panels is an economical option, whereas five or ten years ago solar panels were not an economical option for these countries."
However, Brazil remains the country with the highest investment in the entire region: "If you exclude Brazil, which is the undisputed leader, 10 years ago regional investment was US$1 billion a year, or perhaps a little more. While in the last three years it has risen to $6 billion, $7 billion and $9.3 billion, so there's definitely a growth curve in Latin America," said Angus McCrone, first author of the study and editor-in-chief of Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
The expert hopes that other countries such as Colombia, Argentina and Venezuela will increase their participation, which at the moment is very little, but which have a high potential to carry out projects of this kind.
With information from BBC Mundo.
