El Salvador: State energy companies reported record generation during 2022

This Presidency of the Republic of El Salvador release was published using machine translation.

The Government of President Nayib Bukele has promoted greater investment and better practices in state energy companies in El Salvador, gathered in the Lempa River Hydroelectric Executive Commission (CEL), to increase production with renewable resources.

“This is how we close 2022! I want to inform Salvadorans that all of our energy companies ended last year with positive figures. At CEL we had record generation figures with 2,147 GWh (gigawatts per hour), surpassing the highest figure recorded in 2010”, indicated the president of this autonomous community, Daniel Álvarez.

The result highlighted by the official is the highest in more than 20 years. With these efforts, it was possible to supply the local demand in a majority proportion and maintain a stable energy rate.

In the national supply of energy, renewables were the ones that contributed the most; practically four out of five Gw/h. Within that total, the autonomous government was the one that injected the most. “ In 2022, more than half of the energy consumed by the almost 2 million Salvadoran users was thanks to our generation. Only with hydroelectric and geothermal sources we exceed almost 51% of the participation”, stressed the president of CEL.

Under the autonomous administration are LaGeo, in charge of geothermal production, and Compañía Eléctrica Cucumacayán (CECSA), which contributes to the national matrix with the generation of plants that have a smaller scale.

"In 2022, LaGeo closed with an increase higher than that registered in 2020 and 2021, reaching 1,468 GWh from our geothermal plants in Ahuachapán and Berlín ," said Álvarez. Meanwhile, CECSA reached its maximum production since its foundation, 22 years ago, with 44,139 megawatts per hour.

Another of the companies that CEL operates, Inversiones Energéticas, increased its production by 56.5% compared to 2021.

The president of CEL explained that for these historical achievements they have made efficient use of the resource, timely maintenance on the equipment of all plants, 24/7 monitoring and installation of new technologies.