Legal and regulatory framework for geothermal development in El Salvador

Abstract

El Salvador geothermal development since 1999 has been under two important general laws and their regulation: Electrical General Law (EGL) and Environmental Law (EL), both applied in parallel. Energy productions regulatory framework applied by LaGeo to geothermal projects has been supervised by Superintendence of Electricity and Telecommunications (SIGET). Environmental legal requirements are supervised by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN), which guarantees compliance of the environmental law and the fulfilment of the regulations. LaGeo, despite being the only geothermal developer in El Salvador, has worked above the standard set by the law, considering within its policies and action plans for environmental education and local human development taking into account international treaties signed by the government. With its years of experience, LaGeo has proposed some important modifications to the regulatory framework mainly on EGL (Decree 460, September 2013), which have been approved by Salvadoran parliament but SIGET monitors all the procedures as always.