Mauricio Macri, the president of Argentina, wants to increase the weight of renewable energy in the electricity industry of his country. So that, at the end of 2018, the 8% of production whether from green energy sources, unfortunately, currently they do not reach 2% of the total generation.
This was stated by the president of that magnificent country, during the visit he made for the expansion works of the Rawson Wind Farm, located in the southern province of Chubut, in which it was the first official act of the year for Macri.
Argentina
As we have just mentioned, currently renewable sources represent 2% of the Argentine energy matrix, 10.000 MW must be incorporated and more than 15,000 million dollars will be required to achieve this.
The government announced that its Renovar energy works tender plan closed 2017 with the start-up of 147 projects in 18 provinces of the southern country, a figure very important, for the objective of the Executive of Macri to reach 2020 with 20% of production based on renewable sources.
In fact, Argentina is a country with important natural resources for the generation of wind and solar energy, that is why Law 27.191, enacted in 2015, established that these energies should reach 20% of the matrix in 2025.
For this, in May 2016, with the launch of the plan, an investment of approximately 4.000 million dollars was estimated in the project and the creation of 20.000 new jobs.
Already at that time, the energy objective planned that the use of green energies would reach 8% by the end of 2017, a goal that Macri has transferred to the end of 2018.
"All Argentines are participating together in this, which is a challenge for the whole world: to reduce the level of pollution and guarantee a planet for our children and our grandchildren," he said during his speech.
The works to expand the Rawson wind power plant include the incorporation of 12 wind turbines, with which the park's production will be able to increase to 410.000 megawatts per hour, equivalent to the consumption of 137.000 homes, and have involved an investment of almost 40 million dollars by the Genneia company.
According to Macri, this expansion joins many other renewable projects, such as the construction in the province of Jujuy (north) of what would be the "largest solar plant in Latin America", where more than a million solar panels will be placed.
«In recent months we have received many foreign investors interested in investing in renewables in Argentina, so we anticipate a higher participation of them in this bidding round, "said Macri.
According to reports from the Ministry of Energy, the interest of local and international investors in the industry is great: they estimate that would enter to the country about 3000 billion dollars in the coming years, in addition to the generation of more than 10.000 jobs.
Green Power
In fact, to support the development of renewables in the region about 3 months ago, it was developed in the Hilton hotels of the City of Buenos Aires one of the congresses most important in the sector of renewable energies. Everyone passed through the discussion tables: from developers, to national officials, companies, banks and analysts specialized in thinking about markets.
Companies have their eyes on Argentina because there is a paradigm shift, and the regulatory framework is also changing. Since the law dedicated to renewable energies was created, it has evolved and the regulations to promote them. Now they have until next year for large energy consumers to ensure that 8% of the energy they consume comes from clean sources. And that speeds up the industry.
Now it makes sense to invest in renewables not only for environmental, social or moral responsibility issues, but also from the point of view economic and financial. This is because the technologies are cheaper, the prices are not as high as before and it is much more competitive if we compare them with fossil fuels.