South America Solar Growth in 2024: Achievements and Challenges

South America continued its steady solar growth over the last half-decade in particular, and overall renewable energy capacity additions in general, through the year 2024. Brazil remained the biggest market on the Latin American continent, with other nations like Chile, Colombia, and Costa Rica showing diversity in renewable progress. On the other hand, Chile’s massive solar curtailment through the year shows the challenges that still affect the sector on the continent. Certainly a case where cost effective storage couldn’t have come sooner.

The region has a large amount of sun, wind, water, and other natural resources that can be harnessed to generate clean energy. Solar energy, which is at the helm of global energy transition goals, is a crucial energy source powering the transition for the South American continent as well.

Latin America receives some of the highest solar radiation in the world, making it a hub for solar energy and photovoltaic systems. In fact, the Atacama Desert in Chile, which has the highest global solar irradiation on Earth (2770 kWh/m2), has attracted significant investment. In 2023, the Spanish energy company Grenergy announced the Oasis Atacama project with plans to invest EUR 1.5 billion (USD 1.6 billion) for the development of PV energy systems and EUR 800 million (USD 857 million) for battery energy storage.

The decrease in the cost of solar panels and favorable government policy initiatives promoting solar installations have become the harbingers of solar growth in the region. 

South America Solar: 2024

The year 2024 carried the momentum from previous years, which made the solar sector bloom on the continent, setting a positive growth trend through at least the next decade. In its May 2024 report, BMI estimated that solar energy generation’s market share across Latin America will increase from 6 percent in 2024 to 10 percent by 2033. Brazil and Chile are the two best-performing states, with quite different growth stories.

Brazil

Brazil is the biggest market on the continent. The country joined the list of the top six countries with the highest solar installed capacity, reaching over 50 GW of installed capacity in 2024. Of over 10.8 GW of new power generation capacity, new solar additions constituted over 5.6 GW in 2024, making it a highly successful year for the PV industry. However, the government recently passed Gecex Resolution No. 666, which increased the import duty on PV modules from 9.6 percent earlier to 25 percent. This has made solar modules more expensive to import, which may affect solar investments in the country in the future.

Chile

Chile added 2.4 GW of solar PV capacity and witnessed a record USD 5.7 billion in renewable energy investments in 2024. With a total of 11.7 GW installed, solar PV represents the technology with the most installed capacity, followed by wind and natural gas. Despite these achievements, Chile made headlines for all the negative reasons. The country faces challenges in managing its rapidly growing renewable energy sector.

Though 2.2 TWh of solar PV was added between 2023 and 2024, its curtailed capacity increased by 2.7 TWh in 2024. The country curtailed a record 5,909 GWh of solar PV and wind power, mostly due to transmission constraints and a lack of electricity demand in regions with high renewable energy penetration, the Chilean renewable energy and energy storage association (ACERA) reported.

This is a major jolt, considering that in the absence of curtailment, their share in the country’s total generation for the year would have been 47 percent instead of 40 percent. Energy storage has become a necessity in Chile for a solar PV project to be financially viable and could solve the issue of curtailment in the coming years.

Setting Precedent for Others

While Latin America and the Caribbean have shown the slowest growth in terms of energy transition in the last decade, Brazil and Chile performed extremely well, ranking in the top 20 performers worldwide, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Fostering Effective Energy Transition Report. Both Latin American countries now have a diverse energy mix, with renewable sources contributing significantly to their energy demand. Neighbors, such as Mexico and Colombia, are also foraying into the solar industry, but the adoption rates are much slower in comparison.

Colombia’s equatorial location offers exceptional solar energy potential, particularly in La Guajira and the Caribbean region, where solar irradiance levels rank among the highest globally. At the start of 2024, the Colombian authorities allocated 4.4 GW of solar capacity at a rate of USD 0.0182/kWh in an energy auction, with solar plants accounting for approximately 99 percent of the assigned capacity.

The Q3 results declared that Colombia’s total installed solar capacity increased to 1,348 MW, representing about 7 percent of the country’s energy mix. The final months of the year and January witnessed further growth as the country built on this solar boom. Enel Colombia last month began commercial operations of a 370 MW solar PV project. In January 2025, the 144 MW solar park in Monteria was launched, marking one of the largest solar investments in the country, totaling USD 200 million.