Recently during the World UN summit in New York, President Juan Carlos Varela and SkyPower announced that SkyPower intends to build 500 MW utility scale solar energy systems over the next 5 years.
This hopefully will take some of the demand off the hydroelectric plants that currently provide for more than 70% of the power used by Panama. With the decrease of water in the canal due to El Nino, finding other options or additional options that don’t rely on high levels of water is a necessity.
In addition SkyPower will be providing Panama with over 10,000 new jobs and SkyPower is also constructing a 50 million dollar solar and environmental research center in Panama.
The bigger picture that SkyPower sees is the ability to have Panama become a major player in the new development of solar technologies for all of Central America.