Central & South America | The future looks bright
The growing relationship between solar and hydropower is being embraced across Central and South America
Right: Piedra del Aguila reservoir in Argentina
Below: Power outage in Loja, Ecuador in 2024. Amid the drought affecting the country, power outages caused by hydroelectric failures disrupted commerce, forcing people to seek alternative energy sources. The integration of floating solar with hydropower offers a promising solution to enhance energy security © Jorge Burneo Celi /
Shutterstock.com
THE INTEGRATION OF FLOATING photovoltaics (FPV) with hydropower plants is being viewed as an increasingly promising opportunity to enhance energy security across Central and South America, a region where power intermittency and water scarcity could become more problematic for future energy grids. One area of research has focused on the reservoirs of the Andean region, with five of Argentina’s hydroelectric power plants on the Limay River considered as a case study. These are the: Alicurá (1000MW and capacity factor of 25%). Piedra del Águila (1400MW and CF of 45% Pichi Picún Leufú (250MW and CF of 48%) El Chocón (1200MW and CF of 29%) Arroyito (120MW and CF of 68%)
Collectively generating 12,830GWh annually, these projects have an installed capacity of 3970MW, yielding an overall capacity factor of 37% (equivalent to less than 9 hours of operation per day). As Dr Luis Juanico and Martin Ducos explain, in practice, “their effective generation capacity is significantly constrained by the availability of water
resources, which are highly variable and generally scarce – a characteristic of all mountain rivers”. Although designed to operate continuously, the average annual capacity factors of these plants reportedly range from 25% to 50% and typically operate to meet peak demand for 6 to 12 hours per day. “This reflects a significant idle capacity – ranging from
50% to 75%, or 12 to 18 hours daily – in both the power transformation system and the National Interconnected System transmission line,” Juanico and Ducos add. Furthermore, generation is influenced by seasonal and climatic variations such as a recent 35% reduction in generation at Piedra del Águila – driven by a sharp 55% decrease in the flow of the Collón Curá River, a tributary of the Limay.
Juanico and Ducos put forward two proposals in
their research. The first doubles installed capacity by adding PV power equivalent to hydroelectric capacity, increasing energy production to 23,707GWh with an investment of US$1.925 billion. The second proposal aims for a higher capacity factor by doubling the PV capacity and adding a four-hour battery storage system. This results in a 92% capacity factor, increasing energy production to 31,899GWh, and requiring an investment of US$4.431 billion. Although this is a significant increase in cost, the authors add that in comparison installing two nuclear reactors (1800MW each) to generate a similar amount of energy would require an investment and construction timeframe eleven times greater. However, there is more to the second proposal, which is combined with the potential of meeting the demands for an artificial intelligence data centre. As the authors explain, it could support the installation of large computing centres for future AI applications directly at the hydroelectric sites. These locations offer several advantages over the most common choice of Buenos Aires. For example: Efficient cooling source. The reservoirs offer an abundant supply of crystal-clear, low-mineral water with an annual average temperature of 11°C, significantly cooler than the 21°C average of the Paraná River near Buenos Aires.
14 | August 2025 |
www.waterpowermagazine.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45
