Oil power plant in Cortes, Honduras. Approximate location 15.8557, -87.9558.
OilCortesHondurasEngine
ELCOSA is a 80 MW oil power plant in Cortes, Honduras. It is operated by Empresa Nacional De Energia Electrica. Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 60k homes (estimated). It ranks #12 of 47 Honduras power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 1994, it is around 32 years old — long-established. In context, oil supplies about 44.1% of Honduras's electricity; the national grid averages 322 gCO₂/kWh (55.4% low-carbon) (2024).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id WRI1029350.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The capacity and/or fuel fields on this page include a source-backed provenance label from GEM, an official registry, Wikidata, OSM, or a cross-source match.
capacity: GEM tracker 2026 (location L100000408652); fuel: WRI source-record fuel
At 80 MW, ELCOSA is around the median oil plant in Honduras (82 MW). Technically it is described as Engine. Oil-fired plants burn heavy fuel oil or diesel, usually as peaking or backup capacity on islands and grids without gas pipelines; high fuel cost keeps their utilisation low.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
Installed capacity (MW), WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0).
Operated by Empresa Nacional De Energia Electrica. All plants by this company →
This oil plant burns oil or diesel to drive turbines or reciprocating engines. It sits in a tropical rainforest climate (Köppen Af) — Northern Hemisphere, latitude 15.9°N — which shapes how much energy it can produce and how its output varies through the year.
Monthly mean temperature
This site has effectively no heating season (tropical/equatorial climate), so winter heat loss is not the driver here. The thermal concern shifts to year-round process heat and humidity/heat-driven corrosion of hot equipment.
Climate normals: WorldClim 2.1 (1970–2000 monthly normals, 10 arc-min, CC BY 4.0); zone: Köppen-Geiger world climate classification (Kottek et al. 2006, 0.5° grid). Degree-days & heat-demand index computed by PowerAtlas — a modelled heat-demand proxy, not a measured site figure.
For a plant’s outdoor hardware — heat-recovery steam generators (HRSG), expansion joints, valves, flanges and their insulation — the local climate sets how fast unprotected steel and coatings degrade. This site sits in an aggressive, high-corrosion environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C5 — Very high), with marine salt corrosion the leading environmental stress.
Higher environmental severity is exactly where protective removable insulation pays back most: a sheltered micro-climate slows corrosion, UV and thermal-cycling damage and extends outdoor hardware service life. This is an indicative site-climate context — not a condition assessment of any specific plant or operator.
Indicative estimate via the ISO 9223:2012 informative method (atmospheric corrosivity from temperature, time-of-wetness and airborne salinity), using WorldClim climate normals, the Köppen-Geiger class and coast distance. Indicative, not a measured corrosion rate.
The #5 largest oil power plant of 7 in Honduras by capacity.
Honduras has 7 oil power plants in this dataset, together about 928 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 15.8557, -87.9558 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
ELCOSA is a 80 MW source-record oil power plant in Cortes, Honduras, commissioned in 1994.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 60,068 homes (estimated).
ELCOSA is operated by Empresa Nacional De Energia Electrica.
