El Salvador's agriculture

• Official Name: Republic of El Salvador.

Summary: El Salvador lacks fossil fuel reserves and used fossil fuels to generate only 9.3 percent of its electricity in 2023, according to the World Factbook. The country relied on renewable energy sources to generate its electricity, including biomass, which comes from agricultural animals and plants. In 2024, agriculture comprised 4.4 percent of El Salvador's gross domestic product (GDP).

Traditionally an agricultural country, El Salvador historically used biomass as its main energy source until the mid-twentieth century. The first hydropower plant in El Salvador was put into operation in 1908, and in 1912, the first diesel power plant began operation. Throughout the second decade of the twentieth century, several small power plants were put into operation, mainly to supply power for processing of agricultural products. In the 1920s, the expansion of street illumination and ice making prompted the creation of local utilities in some cities, first fueled by hydropower and later also by diesel. In 1936, the Salvadoran government created the Comisión Nacional de Electricidad to regulate electricity distribution, keep statistics on production, and initiate assessment of hydroelectric potential of the Lempa River. By the 1940s, however, electricity supply to households and businesses was still scarce or was provided under conditions of strict rationing.

The creation of the state-owned utility Comisión Ejecutiva del Río Lempa (CEL) in 1945 gave impetus to the development of the Salvadoran power sector. In 1954, CEL put into operation the largest hydropower plant in the country at the Lempa River, with an installed capacity of 82 megawatts. From the 1950s to the 1970s, CEL built two other hydropower facilities and a thermal power facility, and it expanded the transmission and distribution infrastructure of electricity nationwide. In 1972, CEL started the construction of the first Salvadoran geothermal facility for power generation at Ahuachapán; it entered into operation in 1976 and has an installed capacity of 95 megawatts. In 1981, the Ahuachapán facility provided 41 percent of national electricity consumption. After some feasibility studies between 1976 and 1981, CEL put into operation a second geothermal facility for power generation in 1992, at Berlín. During the following years, the installed capacity was built up to reach 28 megawatts in 1999.

During the 1980s, civil war and political instability caused deterioration of the power infrastructure in particular and of the energy sector in general. Thus, throughout the 1990s, the Salvadoran government introduced a series of reforms in the energy sector, which included the separation of generation, transmission, and distribution activities of electricity in the power sector. CEL was reorganized. It remains under government control but now runs only hydropower facilities; geothermal facilities were put under another state-independent entity, LaGeo. Thermal power facilities and distribution of electricity were privatized, while transmission was transferred from CEL to the state-owned Empresa Transmisora de El Salvador. Both wholesale and retail markets for electricity were created.

In the twentieth century, El Salvador imported 100 percent of its fossil fuels from Mexico and Venezuela. In 1980, these two countries signed the San José Agreement with the governments of various Caribbean and Central American nations, El Salvador among them, to supply oil at discount prices. Moreover, in 2000, El Salvador joined in the Caracas Agreement for Energy Cooperation, which provided an additional 8,000 barrels per day of Venezuelan oil at discount prices; in 2006, several Salvadoran municipalities signed an agreement for oil supply with Venezuela and created an association, Energía Para El Salvador (ENAPASA), to supply Venezuelan oil at discount prices.

El Salvador, along with its Central American neighbors, Colombia, and Mexico, has begun to interconnect its respective electricity grids to create a united power market within the framework of the Proyecto Mesoamérica for the integration of the region’s energy infrastructure; geothermal energy and other renewable energy sources are to play a key role. According to the World Factbook, in 2023 about 31 percent of electricity was generated from hydropower, 14.5 percent stemmed from geothermal power, 19.1 percent from solar power, 14 percent from biomass and waste, and 2.1 percent from wind. During the same year, 9.1 percent of El Salvador's electricity was generated from fossil fuels. The country exported 140 million kWh of electricity in 2023.

Bibliography

"El Salvador." World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 17 Sept. 2025, www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/el-salvador/. Accessed 25 Sept. 2025.

"El Salvador." International Energy Agency, 2024, www.iea.org/countries/el-salvador. Accessed 25 Sept. 2025.

"El Salvador." US Energy Information Administration, 2023, www.eia.gov/international/overview/country/SLV. Accessed 25 Sept. 2025.

"El Salvador—Country Commercial Guide." International Trade Administration, 26 Jan. 2024, www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/el-salvador-agricultural-sectors. Accessed 25 Sept. 2025.