Mission
The Institute is a nonprofit organization working to support clean energy and climate solutions in the Americas.
Why the Americas?
The Western Hemisphere has the potential to become a global epicenter of clean energy solutions. Drivers of clean energy innovation, investment and deployment in the region include:
  • Growing demand: The Western Hemisphere produces approximately 30% of global electricity. Demand for electricity in Latin America and the Caribbean is projected to double by 2030 due to strong GDP growth and socio-economic migration. 
  • Declining costs: Solar PV module prices have fallen over 80% in the last four years, and wind equipment prices have fallen over 21% since 2010.
  • Abundant renewable resources: The region hosts some of the world’s best wind, solar, and geothermal resources, and there is growing interest in energy efficiency and smart grid technologies.
  • Policy reforms: Countries in Latin America have recently adopted net metering, Renewable Portfolio Standards, feed in tariffs, and other enabling policies.
  • Incentives to diversify energy mix: Under a business-as-usual scenario, fossil fuels and hydroelectric dams—including dozens of new large dams in the Amazon —would provide most of the region’s additional power capacity. The social, environmental, and economic costs of these energy sources, combined with the vulnerability of dams to drought and unpredictable rainfall patterns, are spurring public- and private-sector efforts to diversify the region's energy mix.
Why Clean Energy?
Clean energy benefits include:
  • Economic Benefits: Providing low cost options in multiple markets, particularly distributed and off-grid applications; catalyzing new business opportunities across the clean energy supply chain.
  • Environmental / Human Rights Benefits: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions; alleviating pressure on ecosystems and communities threatened by fossil fuel projects and hydroelectric dams.
  • Social / Public Health Benefits: Expanding access to affordable clean energy to the approximately 35 million people in the region who lack modern electricity services; reducing pollution; improving delivery of educational and health care services to rural areas, enabling children to study after dark, clinics to operate at night, and foods and medicines to be refrigerated.

Join Our Network

Trends and Forecasts:
  • In Brazil, wind is the fastest growing source of power and, in recent auctions, was less expensive than natural gas and hydro.
  • Chile's National Energy Commission reports that it is feasible to connect up to 2.2 gigawatts (GW) of solar plants to the national grid over the next 15 years at costs comparable to building new coal plants.
  • The Mexican government projects that by 2020 wind capacity will increase 10-fold to about 12 GW and grid-connected solar will increase to 1.5 GW. 
  • In the U.S., renewable energy capacity increased 97% between 2009 and 2012. Renewables accounted for nearly half of all new electric capacity added in 2012 and all of new capacity added in January 2013.
  • In Latin America, analysts forecast a 45% compound annual growth rate for solar through 2017 and 20% for wind through 2020.
Barriers
Despite recent momentum, significant barriers to clean energy innovation, investment and deployment exist, including regulatory uncertainty, substantial governmental subsidies for fossil fuels and dam construction, and high interest rates in many markets, which increase the cost of financing clean energy infrastructure.
Our Role
The Institute is an independent nonprofit nongovernmental organization (NGO) that works with clean energy stakeholders in the public and private sectors to support clean energy deployment in the Americas.
Sources: Bloomberg, Brazil Wind Power 2013, Energy & Climate Partnership of the Americas, Ernst & Young, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FitchRatings, Inter-American Development Bank, International Energy Agency, International Renewable Energy Agency, MAKE Consulting, Nature Climate Change, Organización Latinoamericana de Energía, PV Magazine, Solarbuzz, Sustainable Energy for All, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Energy Information Administration, The Washington Post, Wind Power Monthly, The World Bank.