"Renewables, rights and relations: Chinese solar projects in Nicaragua" 28 October 2024

At the end of June, a 112-hectare concession was granted for the construction of Enesolar AP-AS 1, one of three solar plants for which the Nicaraguan government has secured support from Chinese investors...

The design, supply and building contract for all three plants – which will reportedly have a total capacity of 200 megawatts – has been awarded to China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), one of China’s main state-owned construction firms...

... the arrival of these solar projects has raised familiar concerns among some analysts, over the practical impossibilities of transparently monitoring their environmental and social impacts. The human and environmental rights evaluations offered here are therefore based on experiences with previous, similar projects...

A private sector renewable energy expert told Dialogue Earth that building the two solar plants will require clearing approximately 200 hectares of forest.

Dialogue Earth asked Evan Ellis, a Latin America research professor at the US Army War College in Pennsylvania, about the Nicaraguan government’s track record on energy project concessions. He laments: “In terms of community benefits, environmental impacts, social conflicts and other repercussions – especially in a regime that lacks transparency, strong democratic institutions and the rule of law – the result has been disastrous.”

... Amaru Ruiz, president of the Fundación del Río, asserts, “there is no environmental or social impact study that stops the government’s interests.”...Ruiz adds that “the government has a long history of violating the rights of Indigenous communities and repressing dissenting voices, and this case will sadly be no different.”...