MSc Environmental Engineering

CEG8112: Air Pollution

Coursework 1

El Salvador:
An Investigation of emissions from Electricity
production and Evaluation of feasibility to
fully transform to Renewable energy methods

Yusuf K. Khambhati
Student No.: 210367654
Module Leader: Prof. David Werner
Date: 10th January, 2022
 Table of Contents

Sr. No. Title Page No.

1.0 Introduction 2
2.0 Methodology 3
3.0 Results 4
4.0 Discussion 4
5.0 Conclusions 7
References 8

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1.0 Introduction
Energy demand in the world is increasing day by day pertaining to the population rise, technological
advancements and increase in the standard and quality of life (Walker, 2014). But for resource sustainability
and welfare of the planet, it is important that this energy comes from clean and renewable sources
(Greenstone, 2011). The three constituents of the overall energy production are electricity, heating and
transport (Mathiesen et al., 2012). With increasing shift to electric cars and electric heaters, electricity
generation becomes the centre point of focus in order to reduce emissions from the burning of fossil fuels
(Mathiesen et al., 2012). Fossil fuels combustion to obtain electric power leads to the discharge of air
pollutants such as Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen Oxides (NOx), Methane (CH4)
and other trace pollutants which contribute towards global temperature and climate change, acid rains and
severe health problems (Sims et al., 2003). This report aims to analyse CO 2 and SO2 emissions the from
various electric power generation methods of the country El Salvador in 2014 and exploring the possibility of
generating 100% of the country’s power from renewable energy sources by the year 2050.

Situated on the Pacific coast, the Republic of El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America with
surface area of 21040 km 2 (World Bank, 2022a). It experiences fairly uniform tropical climate with well-
defined dry and wet seasons (Climate Change, 2021). In the year 2014, the national population was 6295128,
placing El Salvador amongst the most densely populated countries in the region (World Bank, 2022a). Its
Gross domestic product (GDP) was US$ 3589 per capita in 2014 which is moderate but shows potential of
growth via adequate reforms (Calvo-Gonzalez and Lopez, 2015). According to Human Development Report
2020 (UNDP, 2020), the Human Development Index (HDI) value of the country was 0.673 in 2019, putting it
in the medium category of human development based on key factors like long healthy life, decent living
standards and access to education. The strongest economic sector of the country is Service sector with around
60% contribution to the GDP, with industry and agriculture accounting for roughly 23% and 5% share in the
GDP respectively (World Bank, 2022a).

In terms of electricity generation, the country is doing well by providing more than 95% of its population the
access to electricity with per capita consumption of 937.07 kWh in 2014 (IEA, 2014). In the same year, it
already produced 59.7 % of the total electricity from the renewable sources like hydro-power, solar energy
and geothermal energy but still relied on petroleum oil to meet 40.3 % of its energy demand (IEA, 2014).

El Salvador is keen on developing the renewable sources for varied reasons and this is reflected in various
policies it has put forth to facilitate the same and some of which are based on United Nations 2030 Agenda
for Sustainable Development (IRENA, 2020). Lessening the dependency on imported power and thereby
revamping energy security for public welfare and economic boost are the main reasons for the country’s
preference for renewable methods (IRENA, 2020). In 1996, the General Electricity Law was passed which
allowed more private sector involvement in development of renewable energy (IRENA, 2020). The National
Energy Policy 2010-2024 secured the renewable stronghold and since 2013 there is no new fossil fuel power
plants addition (IRENA, 2020). Hydropower, Geothermal energy and Photo voltaic (PV) cells are constantly
being improved and had reached 2.2 GW combined capacity in 2019, PV power generation alone expanded
ten folds to 273 MW(IRENA, 2020). National Energy Policy 2020-2050 is under development by the
National Energy Council which is intended to be a long-term policy for reduction in electricity tariff by
extended renewable energy generation, it sets goals for renewable power, clean technologies and energy
efficiency (IRENA, 2020). In a broad perspective, El Salvador has motivation, modes and potential for a
cleaner energy production and emission reduction (IRENA, 2020).

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2.0 Methodology
In order to evaluate any country’s contribution to global Carbon dioxide (CO 2) and Sulphur dioxide (SO2)
emission levels, it is important to calculate the amount of electricity produced by non-renewable sources
which contain Carbon (C) and Sulphur (S), i.e. coal, natural gas and heavy oils.

The total energy generated would be higher than the energy consumed due to the transmission and
distribution losses, as the energy generated is not known, the percent losses are assumed to be of the
electricity consumed. These losses (11.33% for El Salvador in 2014) are added to the value of total electricity
consumed to estimate the total energy generated (IEA, 2014).

Total energy consumed=Electricity consumed per capita × Population

¿ 937.07 × 6295128

¿ 5.9 ×109 kWh/ year (by El Salvador ∈2014)

Total electricity generated=( Total enegy consumed )+ ( Total enegy consumed × Percent enegy losses )

11.33
(
¿ ( 5.9 ×109 ) + 5.9 ×109 ×
100 )
¿ 6.57 ×10 9 kWh / year (by El Salvador∈2014)
Now, El Salvador used only oil as non-renewable energy source, so the electricity produced using oil in 2014
would be (IEA, 2014):

Electricity ¿ Oil=Total electricity generated × percent electricity ¿ Oil

40.3
¿ 6.57 ×10 9 ×
100

¿ 2.65 ×109 kWh / year

It is assumed that all the Carbon and Sulphur present in the fuel gets completely oxidized to CO 2 and SO2
respectively upon combustion. To determine the dry weight of C, the carbon content in the fuel is divided by
its calorific value. Then the obtained value is multiplied by 3600 to convert g/kJ to g/kWh and divided by the
thermal efficiency, which gives the weight of C released per kWh of electricity generated. To calculate CO 2
emissions, weight of C is divided by molecular weight of C and multiplied by molecular weight of CO 2,
which is then multiplied by the kWh of electricity generated from that particular source per year. This gives
annual emission of CO2. SO2 emissions can be worked out by following similar steps for Sulphur content.
CO2 emitted by El Salvador in 2014 from oil sources can be calculated as:

850 3600 44
CO 2 emissions ¿ Oil= × × × 2.65× 109=1.99 ×10 12 g / year
44000 0.34 12

¿ 1.99 ×109 kg / year

These calculations were carried out for global data to estimate CO 2 and SO2 emissions due to electricity
produced from coal, natural gas and oil (IEA, 2014).

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3.0 Results
Table 1. Total and Per capita emissions from each source for energy for El Salvador and the World.
El Salvador World El Salvador World
Source
(Total) (Total) (Per capita) (Per capita)
Oil 1.99×109 6.54×1011 315.33 90.20
CO2 Emissions Coal 0 1.13×1013 0 1552.14
(kg/year) Natural gas 0 2.91×1012 0 400.69
Total 1.99×109 1.48×1013 315.33 2043.03
Oil 1.27×106 4.20×108 0.20 0.06
SO2 Emissions Coal 0 9.17×1010 0 12.64
(kg/year) Natural gas 0 1.63×107 0 0.002
Total 1.27×106 9.21×1010 0.20 12.70

Figure 1. Comparison of overall per capita CO2 Figure 2. Comparison of overall per capita SO2
emissions between the World and El Salvador. emissions between the World and El Salvador.

CO2 SO2

Figure 3. Contribution of different fossil fuel sources (Oil, Coal and Natural Gas) to CO 2 and SO2 emissions
from Global energy generation.

4.0 Discussion

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El Salvador, like rest of the world, is threatned by the dire consequences of climate change (Climate Change,
2021). The country is already prone to earthquakes and volcano eruptions and in near future it will be
susceptible to higher ocurrence of floods, droughts, storms and other extreme weather events (Climate
Change, 2021). Unregulated deforestation and degradation of land have adversely impacted fertile lands and
now the little remaining forest cover cannot not provide protection against the effects of changing climate
(USAID 2017). Effects of rising water level has put the country’s 307 km long pacific coastal shores in
impending danger, and all of these problems are directly or indirectly related to the air pollotion caused by
green house gases such as CO2 and SO2 (USAID 2017).
As mentioned earlier, the only fossil fuel source of electricity in El Salvador is Oil, hence all the CO 2 and
SO2 emissions in the country comes from oil burning power stations, but the contribution of diffent fossil
fuels to the total world emissions is represented in Figure 3 (IEA, 2014). It can be derived from numbers in
Table 1 that El Salvador released 0.013% and 0.001% of the total global CO 2 and SO2 discharges repectively.
Per capita electricity consumption is less in El Salvador compared to per capita numbers from the world, so
as expected, per capita emissons of CO 2 and SO2 are also lower than the planet’s total per capita emissions in
2014 which can be seen clearly from Figure 1 and Figure 2.
In order to determine the feasability of overall electricity generation from only renewable power sources by
the year 2050, it is important to predict the electricity demand in 2050. Data shows that the average
population growth of El Salvador has remained around 0.5% between years 2000 and 2014, so this can be
used to estimate the popullation to rise to 7533257 by the year 2050 (World bank, 2022b). Another
determinant is the per capita change in energy consumption which will increase with increasing digitial
devices, availibility of more electric appliances and transport shift towards electric vehicles (IRENA, 2020).
The trend in the per capita power consumption was analyzed and the available data from 2000 to 2014 was
used to extrapolate the power requirement which came out to be 1850 kWh/year per capita (World bank,
2022c). One more factor considered was the transmission and distribution losses of the produced electricity,
the efficiengy is improving with better technology and electricity losses might decrease in fututre. This
theory was proven by looking at past data from 2000 to 2014 with constant visible reduction in the losses,
and the same data was used to extrapolate the losses in 2050 to be roughly 4% (World bank, 2022d). Hence,
the required total electricity production in 2050 was calculated to be 1.45×10 10 kWh/year. But El Salvador
already had renewable energy resouces to generate 3.92×10 9 kWh in 2014, so to generate 100% electricity
from renewable sources by 2050, the country would need to set up power generation methods for additional
1.06×1010 kWh/year.
In 2014, 27.6% of Salvadoran electricity was produced through hydroelectric sources, which highlights
country’s hydro potential(IEA, 2014). As of 2018, four hydro power plants with capacity of 552.7 MW were
operational, and one of them ungerwent expantion of 80MW in 2017 (IRENA, 2020). And another plant with
65.7 MW capacity is also being contructed (IRENA, 2020). The rainfall history shows that the precipitation
is hugegely undependable with overall decline of 2-15% and rising drought episodes (USAID, 2017; Climate
Change, 2021). Possibility of 33-53% decrease in Lempa River Basin (site of 3 dams) generation capacity by
year 2100 is estimated (USAID, 2017). Therefore, hydro powerstations may keep contributing to a huge
portion of electricity in coming years, yet 100% dependibility on this resource is not viable.
Salvadoran territory occupies a vast number geothermal energy fields with power potential. Two geothermal
power facilities reached capacity of 204.4 MW in 2018 (IRENA, 2020). The research and exploration of
geothermal sites dates back to 1960s and the country experts in the sector work and teach at Geothermal
Centre of Excellence, helping global development in geothermal energy (IRENA, 2020). Planning includes
four new Geothermal units with 30MW installed capacity and 76 MW expantion of three existing stations
(IRENA, 2020). Hence, Geothermal energy sector shows great promise in the future, though not enough to
fullfil whole country’s need.

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A very consistant Solar iradiation between 5.36 to 6.44 kWh/m 2 per day is observed in El Salvador (IRENA,
2020). The country has significant experience in the sector allowing production of 309 GWh solar energy in
2018 and the expected yearly generation per unit of PV capacity falls between 1600-1800 kWh/kWp/year for
80% of the territory, favouring the efforts to establish a number of solar PV projects with a total exceeding
250 MW (IRENA, 2020). Capella 140 MW Solar Park is largest in the country utilizing Polycrystalline
modules with 15-17% efficiency and storage reserve of 3.2MW/2.2MWh lithium-ion batteries (which is
largest in Central America) (Alarcón and Landau, 2019). Taking example of the same to predict 100%
electricity generation from solar by 2050, we see that 32.7 square kilometers of country’s area needs to be
covered in solar panels which accounts for 0.15% of total Salvadoran territory.
El Salvador is keen to promote Wind Energy but avarage wind speeds of 4 - 5 m/s at 100 m height does not
work in its favour, 70% of total region shows power density less than 260 W/m 2 (IRENA, 2020).
Nevertheless, a few sites such as Metapán experiences 6.6 m/s wind speeds at 50 m, which is used by Ventus
to install a first ever 54 MW wind power project in El Salvador (IRENA, 2020). The project includes 15 IEC
class II-b Vestas V136/3450 wind turbines of 3.45 MW rated power and 40% power capacity with total
generation capacity of 54 MW (Vestas, 2021). Using the same Ventas model for 100% energy in 2050 will
take 875 turbines, which is not feasable for the wind scenario in El Salvadore. On the other hand, if this
current capacity is increase 5 times (270 MW with 75 wind turbines) by 2050, 9.07 × 10 8 kWh/year
electricity can be obtained from Wind.
Hence, 100% electricity can be generated in El Salvador from renewable energy sources by 2050 with
installation of new solar PV panels and wind turbines in addition to existing renewable energy sources. To
achieve energy distribution as shown in Table 2, 29.9 square kilometer area of PV panels (covering 0.14% of
country’s surface area) and 75 turbines are needed to be set up, and this seems achievable looking at El
Salvador’s current renewable energy policies, attitude towards implimenting reneawble power and the
country’s fervour to become energy independent. This will of cource positively impact the environment as
well, cutting CO2 and SO2 emissions to practically zero.
Table 2. Energy to be generated from each source by 2050 in El Salvador and their percent contribution
Electricity Source Electricity generated (kWh/year) Contribution (%)
New Solar Energy 9.67 × 109 66.71
New Wind Power 9.07 × 108 6.25
9
Existing renewable sources 3.92 × 10 27.04
10
Total electricity to be generated by 2050 1.45 × 10 -

It should be noted that these predictions are made by calculations from currently available technology, but
the coming years will lead to improved efficiencies and major scientific breakthroughs (including hydro and
geothermal energy expansion), rendering clean energy generation even more feasable for El Salvador.
One prominent issue with power from solar and wind systems is the intermittency of the energy sources, but
it can be dealth with by practical approaches (Barton, 2004). Local energy demand keeps changing
throughout the day and so does sunlight and wind, but by the Law of Large Numbers, higher numbers of
solar and wind units can generate stready electricity with minimum fluctuations (Barton, 2004). Also,
advanced weather predicting algorithms can give acculare hourly solar and wind forcast, facilitating energy
requirement from other grids or reserve sources (Barton, 2004). Power requirment at night and/or low wind
days can be met by installing Energy storage systems (Barton, 2004). Pumped hydroelectricity energy
strorage is one of the earliest energy storage system developed, here excess electricity is used to pump the
water up a reservoir and the potential energy is used during peak hours with 65-85 % conversion efficiency
(Suberu et al., 2014). Another option is through battery storage which can give 70-80% conversion

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efficiency depending on battery type (Suberu et al., 2014). Energy storage through Flywheels is also a simple
and efficient method with high power density and simple operartion (Suberu et al., 2014). Additional storage
devices like fuel cells, super capacitors, superconducting magnetic energy storage and thermal energy storage
are also available, these can be combined or integrated according to required specifications (Suberu et al.,
2014).
5.0 Conclusions

 There is a tremendous amount of CO 2 and SO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning by El Salvadore
and rest of the World which adversely affects the environment and the human health.
 El Salvador’s contribution to CO2 and SO2 release is 0.013% and 0.001% of the total world’s
emission, which comes only from Oil sources. This may seems less, but quantitatively, it is a large
amount.
 The country generated 59.7 % of total power from renewables in 2014 and shows great potential to
further increase this capacity with policies and planning in place to become energy independent using
renewable energy.
 To generate all of its electricity from renewable sources by 2050, El Salvador will have to install
solar PV panels to generate 9.67 × 109 kWh/year and wind turbines to generate 9.07 × 108 kWh/year
in addition to its existing renewable infrastructure.
 These renewable energy targets are possible to achieve if the country is willing to make the
investments not only in system installation and electricity distribution, but also in energy storage.

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