Central America Advances Energy Transition with New Roadmap and Regional Alliance
Guatemala has taken a significant stride toward a cleaner energy future in Central America by unveiling its national energy roadmap to 2040 at the SER 2026 summit. The event, organized by the Asociación de Generadores con Energía Renovable (AGER), also marked a pivotal regional development with the formal launch of ARCÁ, an alliance uniting renewable energy associations from Central America and the Caribbean. This initiative aims to foster greater collaboration and accelerate the region's transition to sustainable power sources.
The national roadmap outlines Guatemala's ambitious plans to achieve 80 percent renewable electricity generation by 2035, add 1,000 megawatts of new clean energy capacity, and ensure universal electricity access in rural areas by 2032. A key component of this strategy is a comprehensive modernization of the power system, with a strong emphasis on enhancing transmission infrastructure, expanding energy storage capabilities, and promoting green finance mechanisms.
Complementing the national plan is the establishment of ARCÁ, which brings together Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, and the Dominican Republic. This alliance is expected to facilitate deeper technical, regulatory, and financial coordination at a time when regional power demand is rapidly increasing and climate commitments necessitate structural responses. According to Alfonso González, President of AGER, the roadmap represents a concrete plan to execute a long-overdue transformation in the region's energy sector.
The roadmap's implementation is structured around three phases. The initial preparation phase (2026-2030) will focus on regulatory reforms, designing financing schemes, and launching new renewable energy tenders. The transformation phase (2031-2035) will involve substantial infrastructure development, large-scale integration of renewable energy sources, and accelerated rural electrification efforts. The final consolidation phase (2036-2040) will concentrate on deploying energy storage technologies, introducing energy-sector-linked carbon credits, and establishing resilience mechanisms to address the impacts of extreme climate events. Battery energy storage systems are identified as a crucial enabler for supporting higher shares of variable renewable energy, improving grid stability, and reducing congestion within the transmission network.
The national roadmap is built upon five core pillars: expanding renewable generation, developing transmission networks, achieving universal access to electricity, promoting energy efficiency, and strengthening institutional frameworks. The plan also emphasizes the importance of market-based mechanisms, greater regulatory certainty, and enhanced inter-institutional coordination for successful implementation. Both the national roadmap and the regional alliance are particularly timely, as Guatemala has yet to fully realize its substantial renewable energy potential and currently faces limitations in its electricity system due to insufficient planning and underinvestment in infrastructure.
From a regional perspective, ARCÁ aims to harmonize technical and regulatory approaches, potentially enabling coordinated auctions, standardized regulations, and improved access to multilateral financing on a larger scale. Astrid Perdomo, Executive Director of AGER, stated that the region needed a more formal and strategic cooperation framework, which ARCÁ now provides. The SER 2026 summit also featured insights from international experts, including Diego Mesa Puyo, former Energy Minister of Colombia, who advocated for a forward-looking approach to the energy sector. Patrice Rimond from Siemens highlighted advancements in grid digitalization, while Christopher Barry of Línea Energy presented a case study on integrating solar photovoltaic technology into industrial processes. Gisela Sánchez, Executive President of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), cautioned that the energy transition requires sustained investment and urged governments and developers to prioritize bankable projects with tangible regional impacts.
The simultaneous unveiling of the national roadmap and the regional alliance at SER 2026 underscores a clear message: the energy transition in Central America has moved beyond theoretical discussions and is now a pressing political and economic imperative.
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