Description

Bolivia ranked 36th among the 55 countries assessed by Climatescope 2014, with a score of 0.91. This earned it 17th place among the 26 Latin American and Caribbean nations.

The country is among the top 20 natural gas producers worldwide.

The fuel is nation’s main power source in 2013, it accounted for 62% of the 7.3TWh generated across all sources.

Access to this ready supply of gas, plus the impact of government subsidies, means that electricity prices are low, at an average of $0.08/kWh for retail consumers.

The nationalization of energy companies in recent years, combined with a lack of policy support for renewables and weak economic incentives has meant that clean energy investors have kept their distance. Investment has been limited to stateled projects thus far and the country’s clean energy (excluding large hydro) potential is largely untouched, which is reflected in the country’s low Climatescope score.

However, the South American country should start to see more clean energy activity. On July 2014, the government published new legislation regulating the payment of renewables. The pipeline of projects includes a hydro projects, pilot PV-diesel hybrid system, wind farms and a two-phase geothermal plant.