PRESS RELEASE - 18 MAY 2016
Ministerio de Energía y Minería - Presidencia de la Nación
RenovAR. Project on renewable energy 2016 - 2025
Argentina launches tender for the generation of 1,000MW in renewable energy.
President Mauricio Macri announced a call for bids today to attract renewable energy investment to the country and said that “in just a few months we will receive many offers from all over the world” in a process that will create “between 5,000 and 8,000 new jobs” across the country.
Macri also stated that the plan will benefit Argentina by saving “several hundred million dollars every time our energy consumption spikes” and the country is compelled to import fuel at “enormous expense”. The President unveiled the first phase of the RenovAR programme to the public this morning. The plan aims to provide 1,000 megawatts of renewable energy. The event was held at Argentina’s Centre of Environmental Information and Education (CIFA) in Buenos Aires.
Alongside the President were the head of Buenos Aires’ local government, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, Energy Minister Juan José Aranguren, and Environment and Sustainable Development Minister Sergio Bergman. Also participating in the event, held by the solar panels at the CIFA headquarters, were the US Ambassador to Argentina, Noah Mamet, and the general manager of Invap, Héctor Otheguy.
Macri assured those responding to the country’s call for investment that “we will show them on a daily basis, by working diligently and professionally, that they have made the right choice and that Argentina is a country with a great future ahead of it, both for the Argentine people and for all those who are willing to join us”.
“We have to make a commitment to cut emissions, and Argentina can bring a lot to the table on this, with vast renewable energy resources. Our country has an enormous potential. We have one of the world’s greatest potentials for solar and wind”, he said.
He said that this is why “we are calling for companies to invest in this process which will take us as a country from the situation today, where less than 2 per cent of what we consume comes from renewable sources, to 20 per cent by 2025”.
Rodríguez Larreta felt certain that the government’s policy to promote and boost renewable energy will help tackle the electricity supply issues that plague the country today, especially when energy demand rises over the summer months.
The addition of 1,000 megawatts of renewable energy to the national supply will be broken up as follows: with 600 to be provided by wind, 300 from solar sources, 65 from biomass, 20 from small hydroelectric plants and 15 from biogas.
This will enable the country to save, according to Energy Ministry estimates, around 300 million dollars per year in importing fuel to produce electricity. These calculations are based on the current international oil price of around 50 dollars per barrel.
Renewable energy installations will also offset 2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year, a figure roughly equating to the contamination of 900,000 cars.
The initiation of the process unveiled by the government today comes as part of Argentina’s Regulations for the Promotion of renewable energy sources, under Act 27.191.
Renewable energy currently provides 1.8 per cent of the national electricity demand and the new regulatory framework for the sector is aiming to gradually increase the supply to 4.5 per cent by 2019 and 20 per cent, or 10 thousand megawatts, by 2025.
To see the PDF with the presentation, click here