23 Bank will backstop it. This investment has been primarily in wind and solar energy production as hydro has become a less popular option for new generation due to a greater understanding of the environmental impacts (KPMG, 2019). Specific source investment depends on the region. In Patagonia, wind represents over 95% of all renewable energy production, with hydro making up the remainder; whereas in the north, there is considerably more solar, hydro, and biofuel production (CAMMESA, 2020). Much of this investment appears to be carried out by companies from outside Argentina, with Chinese and German companies both receiving big project awards. RenovAr 4 was expected to be announced after the elections in 2019, but it has yet to be as of February 2021. It will be increasingly difficult for Argentina to reach its goal of 20% of the electricity generation matrix from renewable resources by 2025 if new projects are not announced soon, as they have long lead times, and it will not be possible to achieve without a fourth round of investment, according to Sebastian Kind, Undersecretary of Renewable Energies (Reve, 2019). Unfortunately, there are no new projects expected between 2021 and 2023; nonetheless, there is great potential for new wind, solar, and biomass developments. Renewables Energy Potential Argentina, especially in Patagonia, has some of the greatest wind energy potential in the world. Currently, this potential is not fully realized with an installed wind-based generation capacity of only 2623 MW (CAMMESA, 2020). Due to the unpredictable nature of wind, it is difficult to create an exact measure of the electricity that could be produced if there were further investment. However, estimates that cover only 4% of the country suggest a potential output of 40,000 MW. Extrapolating this estimate to the whole country would suggest an average annual electric output of 100 million MWh (Alvarez, 2005). Argentina’s electricity consumption was 132 million MWh in 2018 (International Energy Agency, n.d.), which means that wind energy alone has the potential to generate over 75% of its total electricity needs. Argentina’s wind, however, is just one facet of its renewable energy potential. Argentina’s solar potential is fantastic, not only due to its photovoltaic potential but also because its location is different from the areas with greatest wind energy potential. Southern Argentina has the greatest wind potential; furthermore, northern Argentina has some areas with photovoltaic potential greater than 7.5 KWh per square meter (Carmona et al., 2018). To capitalize on this potential, Argentina already has installed 759 MW of solar power (CAMMESA, 2020). The complementary nature of Argentina’s wind and solar provides a robust potential, especially if used in conjunction with microgrid technology. Even with Argentina’s large electrical grid system, almost a million Argentinians are not connected (SpiegelFeld et al., 2017). Although perhaps initially counterintuitive, this lack of connectivity presents an opportunity to create microgrids without as large an expense as expanding the current electrical grid. Microgrids are systems that can serve communities with a grid system without having the large expense of connecting to the national grid system. While increasing quality of life, microgrids would decrease energy costs and reduce reliance on conventional energy sources as they are used now (SpiegelFeld et al., 2017). With Argentina’s ultimate goal being to serve the people, investing in these smaller grids that combine multiple renewable energy sources can allow the government to provide critical services to those often overlooked. Argentina’s large agricultural industry creates a great opportunity for biomass, which works through taking plants that have died and turning their energy into heat that can then be turned into electricity. This technology is carbon-neutral, because the carbon released from the plant being burned theoretically would be absorbed by another plant put in its place for the next cycle. Adopting this approach within a large agricultural industry can be beneficial because it uses what otherwise would be waste products to create energy. Currently, biomass energy has an installed capacity of 206 MW (CAMMESA, 2020), which is relatively small compared to wind and solar, but it does have the benefit of being adaptable to energy demand. The largest downside to
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