Race to the Top Latin America 2023 Methodology

Data sources

The data is gathered from Global Energy Monitor's Global Solar Power Tracker and Global Wind Power Tracker, specifically the January 2023 versions.

The January 2023 solar and wind datasets are available for download here (solar) and here (wind) under a creative commons license.

Both the Global Wind Power Tracker and the Global Solar Power Tracker have identified some projects under our nominal capacity threshold, 10 MW for wind, 20 MW for solar. These sub-threshold data are included in the tracker when there is a readily available government dataset, such as for Brazil, Colombia and a number of Latin American countries. However, in order to make a fair comparison between countries across the region none of the sub-threshold data was considered in this report.

Terminology

The following terms are used throughout the text:

Utility-scale: This refers to any project that is large enough to be included in the Global Wind and Global Solar Power Trackers. GEM catalogs all solar installations greater than 20 MW and all wind installations greater than 10 MW.

Announced: Proposed projects that have been described in corporate or government plans or media releases but have not yet taken concrete steps such as applying for permits.

Pre-construction: Projects that are actively moving forward in seeking governmental approvals, land rights, or financing.

Construction: Site preparation and equipment installation are underway.

Operating: The project has been formally commissioned; commercial operation has begun.

Prospective: Any project that are either announced, in pre-construction, or under construction. To get perspective capacity numbers we sum the capacity of projects that are announced, plus the capacity of projects that are in pre-construction, plus the capacity of projects that are under construction.

Methodology

Data collection is done via secondary research by GEM staff; the Wind and Solar methodology pages describes the process a bit more. The Wind and Solar FAQ pages also provide information about the datasets.

Net Zero calculations

The 2022 World Energy Outlook released by the International Energy Agency (IEA) provides global capacity targets broken down by technology type for the year 2030 in table A.3c World energy supply. The global solar target for 2030 is 5,116 gigawatts (GW), which is the sum of the photovoltaic (PV) target and the Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) target, while for wind the global 2030 target is 3,072 GW.

Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario (GW) from 2022 WEO
	2010	2020	2021	2030	2040	2050
Total capacity	5,198	7,849	8,185	15,306	26,870	33,878
Renewables	1,343	2,989	3,278	10,349	21,398	27,304
Solar PV	39	741	892	5,052	11,620	15,468
Wind	181	737	832	3,072	6,435	7,795
Hydro	1,027	1,329	1,358	1,782	2,349	2,685
Bioenergy	83	160	173	320	585	744
of which BECCS	-	-	-	22	98	119
CSP	1	6	7	64	283	437
Geothermal	11	15	16	50	98	126
Marine	0	1	1	9	28	49
Nuclear	403	415	413	535	777	871
Hydrogen and ammonia	-	-	-	189	640	573
Fossil fuels with CCUS	-	0	0	62	266	335
Coal with CCUS	-	0	0	44	168	201
Natural gas with CCUS	-	-	-	18	98	134
Unabated fossil fuels	3,448	4,421	4,462	3,389	1,476	932
Coal	1,621	2,161	2,184	1,452	401	184
Natural gas	1,389	1,830	1,850	1,724	1,004	711
Oil	438	430	427	213	71	38
Battery storage	1	18	27	778	2,311	3,860

Unfortunately, the paper does not break down the global target into regional targets within their Net Zero Scenario model. In order to get a value for Latin America's share of the global 2030 target, we used the 2020 World Energy Outlook report. The 2020 paper provides a regional capacity breakdown by technology types for the Sustainable Development Scenario (SDS) in table A.3 Electricity and CO2 emissions.

Sustainable Development Scenario by Region, consolidated from 2020 World Energy Outlook table A.3
	Solar (PV + CSP) Capacity Target for 2030 (GW)	Regional Percentage of Global Solar Target	Wind Capacity Target for 2030 (GW)	Regional Percentage of Global Wind Target
World	3,177		1,846
Canada and Mexico	52	1.6%	44	2.4%
Central and South America except Brazil	58	1.8%	32	1.7%
Brazil	35	1.1%	27	1.5%

The Sustainable Development Scenario reflects an independent assessment of what would be reasonable and cost effective for each region to achieve a particular target, taking into consideration demographic changes and changes to electricity demand. While the methodology for determining regional allocations in the Sustainable Development Scenario might be different from the Net Zero Scenario it is the closest model to the Net Zero Scenario provided by the IEA and is a reasonable proxy.

Assuming the regional to global proportions in the Sustainable Development Scenario from the 2020 World Energy Outlook report, we scaled the 2030 Net Zero Scenario target to obtain a regional target for 2030.

Regional Capacity Targets
Type	Location	Global Target (GW)	Regional Percentage	Regional Target (GW)
Solar	Central and South America except Brazil	5,116	1.8%	5,116 x 1.8% = 93
	Brazil	5,116	1.1%	5,116 x 1.1% = 56
Wind	Central and South America except Brazil	3,072	1.7%	3,072 x 1.7% = 53
	Brazil	3,072	1.5%	3,072 x 1.5% = 45

Because of the regional definitions used by the World Energy Outlook in their reports, we are only able to get a Net Zero 2030 target for Central America and the Caribbean and South America. Mexico is included with Canada in their regional assessment. In order to add in Mexico's allotment to the Latin America region, we calculated the 2030 wind and solar capacity targets for Mexico using generation targets provided by Solano-Rodrígueze et al. and using capacity factors from IRENA's REmap 2030 Renewable Energy Prospects: Mexico report.

Mexico Net Zero Targets for 2030
Solar Generation Target (TWh)	Solar Capacity Factor	Solar Capacity Target (GW)	Wind Generation Target (TWh)	Wind Capacity Factor	Wind Capacity Target (GW)
64	0.27	27	33	0.31	12

Mexico's estimated 2030 target was then added to to the rest of the region's targets from the IEA Net Zero analysis to get a regional value for wind and solar targets for 2030.

Net Zero Scenario Regional Targets for 2030
	Solar Capacity (GW)	Wind Capacity (GW)
World	5,116	3,072
Central and South America except Brazil	93	53
Brazil	56	45
Mexico	27	12
Latin America Total	177	110

Sub-threshold Solar calculations

The Global Solar Power Tracker comprehensively documents solar PV and CSP projects larger than 20 MW. However, because of the modular nature of solar PV panels, a significant amount of solar capacity can be missed when only considering these larger projects. The International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA, provides country level estimates of renewable capacities. The most recent data available at the time of the Race to the Top: Latin America publication was from the 2022 Renewable Capacity Statistics report, and is for the year 2021. Throughout our briefing, in order to estimate the amount of smaller-scale solar capacity we used the IRENA country values and subtracted the country-wide sum of all the projects in the Global Solar Power Tracker.

Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1: Wind and Solar Buildout Comparison with IEA's Net Zero 2030 Scenario for Latin America

Figure 1 was produced by summing the operating and prospective capacity for wind above 10 MW and solar above 20 MW for all countries in the Latin America region from GEM's Global Solar Power Tracker and Global Wind Power Tracker. The regional 2030 Net Zero calculations are described above in the Net Zero calculations section. To account for solar installations below GEM's 20 MW threshold cutoff, see the description in the Sub-threshold Solar calculations section.

Figure 2

Figure 2: Development of Current and Prospective Wind Capacity in Latin America

The left side of Figure 2 was produced by summing all of the operating wind capacity above 10 MW for all countries in the Latin America region in GEM's Global Wind Power Tracker database for each year beginning in 2006. The right side was created by separately summing all wind projects above 10 MW in the wind database in the Latin America region that are under construction, that are in pre-construction, and that are announced.

Figure 3

Figure 3: Development of Current and Prospective Utility Scale Solar Capacity in Latin America.

The left side of Figure 3 was produced by summing all of the operating solar capacity greater than 20 MW for all countries in the Latin America region in GEM's Global Solar Power Tracker database for each year beginning in 2012. The right side was created by separately summing all solar projects greater than 20MW in the solar database in the Latin America region that are under construction, that are in pre-construction, and that are announced.

Figure 4

Figure 4: Operating Utility-Scale Solar and Wind Capacity (Combined) in Latin America.

Figure 4 was created by summing the operating wind projects above 10 MW and solar projects above 20 MW from the Global Wind Power Tracker and the Global Solar Power Tracker for each country.

Figure 5

Figure 5: Operating Utility-Scale Wind Capacity in Latin America.

Figure 5 was created by summing the operating wind projects over 10 MW from the Global Wind Power Tracker for each country.

Figure 6

Figure 6: Operating Utility-Scale Solar Capacity in Latin America

Figure 6 was created by summing the operating solar projects over 20 MW from the Global Solar Power Tracker for each country.

Figure 7

Figure 7: Wind and Utility-Scale Solar Installations by Year for Top 5 Prospective Countries and Argentina

Figure 7 uses data from the Global Wind Power Tracker and the Global Solar Power Tracker. For each country shown the operating wind capacity over 10 MW and operating solar capacity of 20 MW were summed for each year beginning in 2013 through 2021. Because our research in the region was finished half way through 2022, in order to get a complete sense of installations for the entire year we summed the operating wind and solar capacities for each country shown in 2022 and then added the wind and solar capacities that were not yet operational but for which we had an expected start year of 2022 and were therefore expected to become operational in 2022.

Figure 8

Figure 8: Cumulative Utility-Scale Solar and Wind Capacity Development by Year for Top 5 Prospective Countries.

Figure 8 sums all of the wind capacity above 10 MW and solar capacity above 20 MW for each country from GEM's Global Wind Power Tracker database and Global Solar Power Tracker database for each year beginning in 2005 through 2030.

The Global Wind and Global Solar Power Trackers include the year a project has come online or is planning to come online. This information cannot always be found, especially for projects that are not yet operational (i.e. projects that are announced, in pre-construction, under construction, or shelved). In trying to get a sense of the projected future cumulative growth by year in this figure we have ignored all projects for which we do not have a start year identified. It is likely that not every prospective project will be developed, but it is also likely that more projects will announced in future years that will still become operational by 2030.

Figure 9

Figure 9: Prospective Utility-Scale Solar and Wind Capacity (Combined) in Latin America

Figure 9 was produced by looking at the location and capacity of all wind projects 10 MW and larger and solar projects 20 MW and larger in the Latin America region from GEM's Global Wind Power Tracker and Global Solar Power Tracker.

Figure 10

Figure 10: Prospective Utility-Scale Wind Capacity in Latin America

Figure 10 was produced by looking at the location and capacity of all wind projects 10 MW and larger in the Latin America region from GEM's Global Wind Power Tracker.

Figure 11

Figure 11: Prospective Utility-Scale Solar Capacity in Latin America

Figure 11 was produced by looking at the location and capacity of all solar projects 20 MW and larger in the Latin America region from GEM's Global Solar Power Tracker.

Tables

Table 1

Table 1: Operating and Prospective Wind and Solar Capacity in Latin America, Listed Alphabetically by Country

Country	Wind and Solar Operating Capacity (MW)	Wind and Solar Prospective Capacity (MW)	Wind Operating Capacity (MW)	Wind Prospective Capacity (MW)	Solar Operating Capacity (MW)	Solar Prospective Capacity (MW)
Argentina	4,742	2,142	3,707	1,282	1,035	860
Aruba	30	0	30	0	0	0
Barbados	0	100	0	30	0	70
Bolivia	292	355	132	45	160	310
Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba	11	0	11	0	0	0
Brazil	26,885	217,185	21,493	160,185	5,392	57,000
Chile	10,050	38,157	3,921	21,459	6,129	16,698
Colombia	455	37,052	52	11,968	403	25,084
Costa Rica	399	0	399	0	0	0
Cuba	39	999	0	999	39	0
Curaçao	47	0	47	0	0	0
Dominican Republic	740	2,265	357	100	383	2,165
Ecuador	16	668	16	410	0	258
El Salvador	319	41	54	0	265	41
French Guiana	0	55	0	0	0	55
Guadeloupe	41	0	41	0	0	0
Guatemala	199	68	106	68	93	0
Guyana	0	25	0	25	0	0
Haiti	0	90	0	0	0	90
Honduras	857	152	235	152	622	0
Jamaica	171	173	99	0	72	173
Martinique	14	22	14	22	0	0
Mexico	20,327	6,713	8,209	1,450	12,119	5,264
Nicaragua	189	86	189	0	0	86
Panama	556	2,468	337	1,152	219	1,316
Peru	735	10,029	407	3,658	328	6,371
Puerto Rico	226	408	101	0	125	408
Saint Kitts and Nevis	0	38	0	0	0	38
Trinidad and Tobago	0	112	0	0	0	112
Uruguay	1,720	150	1,526	0	194	150
Virgin Islands (U.S.)	0	26	0	26	0	0

Table 2

Table 2: Top 5 Countries for Total Operating Utility-Scale Solar and Wind Capacity

Rank	Country	Operational Wind and Solar Capacity (GW)
1	Brazil	27
2	Mexico	20
3	Chile	10
4	Argentina	5
5	Uruguay	2

Table 3

Table 3: Top 5 Countries for Operating Utility-Scale Solar and Wind Capacity as a Percentage of Total Electrical Capacity Across All Sources

Rank	Country	Operational Wind and Solar as % of Total Country Capacity
1	Chile	37%
2	Uruguay	35%
3	Honduras	30%
4	Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba	24%
5	Mexico	21%

Table 4

Table 4: Top 5 Countries for Prospective Utility-Scale Solar and Wind Capacity in 2030

Rank	Country	Prospective Wind and Solar Capacity (GW)
1	Brazil	217
2	Chile	38
3	Colombia	37
4	Peru	10
5	Mexico	7