Browse Honduras Daily Stories

An ASJ watchdog report warns that energy losses at Honduras's state power company have risen to 34.4%, a major 1,500-megawatt energy tender already delayed to 2027 risks supply shortages, and the three successor companies can absorb only a fifth of a 143.8-billion-lempira debt.

Honduras's new Energy Justice Law, approved by Congress in August, has drawn interest from international financial institutions and investors who see it as a signal of transparent investment rules and modernization, with the government estimating the sector needs about $6 billion to upgrade infrastructure and expand coverage.

Honduras is separating ENEE's generation, transmission, and distribution into distinct state-owned companies and creating an independent system and market operator, mirroring reforms other Central American nations completed 20–25 years ago.

The electrical regulator (CREE) is expected to approve a 17% rate increase on September 30, but a six-month rate freeze and state subsidies enacted by Congress will prevent the increase from reaching residential and vulnerable consumers.

Cohep's president warned that technical losses, theft, and illegal power tapping in the national grid represent resources that could be redirected to health, education, and infrastructure, and called for Congress to approve an energy-law overhaul to strengthen state utility Enee.

Honduras ranks third in Central America for residential electricity costs at $0.236 per kilowatt-hour, but economists say the true cost to users and public finances is far higher due to losses at the state utility Enee, debt servicing, and an incomplete energy-sector reform.

The Partido Nacional said it would back the Liberal Party's competing energy-sector bill if it gains legislative consensus, citing insufficient votes for its own proposal and the urgency of approving public contracts to lower electricity costs for consumers.

Lawmakers are negotiating a bill to rescue the troubled state electrical utility ENEE and modernize its aging infrastructure, with Congress leadership saying a formal vote could come this week or next.

Congress President Tomás Zambrano called on the Liberal Party to submit its observations on a proposed reform to Honduras's electricity law, framing the modernization of the troubled state utility ENEE as urgent for all Hondurans, not just the governing party.

Congress says it has secured the 65 votes needed to approve electricity-sector reforms aimed at modernizing the system and addressing ENEE's mounting losses—about 1.5 billion lempiras monthly—while rejecting opposition claims the measures would privatize the state utility.

President Nasry Asfura said his administration will not privatize the state power utility ENEE but will pursue efficiency reforms and modernization to address the company's mounting losses, which he called Honduras's main economic problem.

Congress is prepared to review the executive's proposal to restructure the state electricity utility ENEE to reduce its 38% loss rate—which costs the state approximately L1.3 billion monthly—and lower electricity costs for consumers.