Honduras Reservoir Transparency

ENEE's Centro Nacional de Despacho (CND) publishes reservoir level data on an irregular, reactive basis. The CND website hosts an 'Actualización de niveles de embalse' post (November 2023) and a daily operations report section (cnd.enee.hn/informe-diario/), and in February 2026 published an Excel file 'DATOS TECNICOS OPERATIVOS HIDROELECTRICA'. However, no continuous public dashboard exists: current reservoir levels for El Cajón, Cañaveral, Río Lindo, and Patuca III reach the public almost exclusively through CI-ENEE (ENEE's communications office) press releases citing msnm elevation figures during drought or flood emergencies. The Secretaría de Energía (SEN) and SANAA publish tangentially related energy and drinking-water statistics but without machine-readable volumetric storage data. No dedicated, always-available portal for reservoir storage percentage or volume was found.

No REST or machine-readable API exists. The CND website (cnd.enee.hn) has a self-signed SSL certificate that causes browser and tool warnings, reducing practical accessibility. The February 2026 hydroelectric operational data file is an Excel (.xlsx) download with no documented update cycle. The CND daily report page exists but was inaccessible during research (SSL error). Reservoir level figures in the public domain arrive embedded in Spanish-language press releases and news articles, requiring manual extraction. The national open data portal (datos.gob.hn) contains no reservoir storage dataset. The Portal Único de Transparencia (portalunico.iaip.gob.hn) links to ENEE annual reports (PDFs) covering generation statistics but not systematic reservoir levels.

v1.3.0 capacity-weighted, conservative: coverage = round(100 × covered_capacity_hm³ / total_national_capacity_hm³). Honduras's total reservoir capacity above 10 hm³ is approximately 5,700 Mm³, overwhelmingly concentrated in El Cajón / Francisco Morazán (~5,700 Mm³ — by far the largest reservoir in Central America). Patuca III holds a smaller reservoir; Cañaveral-Río Lindo are essentially run-of-river. The drinking-water reservoirs Los Laureles and La Concepción serving Tegucigalpa are small. ENEE / CND has no continuous public dashboard for El Cajón storage; CI-ENEE press releases issue reactive msnm readings only during crises (e.g. near-maximum at 285 msnm in October 2025, Patuca III suspended at minimum in May 2026). Conservatively, only crisis-driven snapshots reach the public — covered capacity ≈ 460 Mm³ of effective signal (sparse El Cajón visibility through one Excel + sporadic press updates only). Coverage = round(100 × 460 / 5,700) = 8.

The Secretaría de Energía (SEN) publishes an Informe Estadístico Anual del Subsector Eléctrico Nacional (IEASEN) annually, with editions available from at least 2019 to 2024, covering aggregate hydroelectric generation in GWh but not reservoir storage volumes or daily/weekly level series. The CND Excel file uploaded in February 2026 ('DATOS TECNICOS OPERATIVOS HIDROELECTRICA') may contain operational parameter series, but no confirmation of its temporal scope or regular update schedule was obtained. No publicly accessible, machine-readable historical time series of reservoir levels (msnm or Mm³) for any Honduran dam was found through research. Episodic msnm readings appear in press articles stretching back several years (e.g., 284.25 msnm for El Cajón in 2020) but these are scattered across news media, not a structured archive.

Reservoir level data is released reactively rather than on a fixed schedule. CI-ENEE issues statements when thresholds are crossed (e.g., when El Cajón approaches maximum at 285 msnm or Patuca III hits its minimum at 280 msnm) or during public concern about power rationing. In May 2026 ENEE stated Patuca III was suspended due to reaching its minimum operational level; this data surfaced through press releases rather than a public monitoring page. COPECO's CENAOS links to a dam-and-river status section (copeco.gob.hn) but this appears to be a static navigation page without automated updates. There is no evidence of a publicly accessible daily or weekly bulletin with standardized reservoir storage readings for the major ENEE facilities.

No published methodology for reservoir measurement was found on any ENEE, CND, SEN, or SERNA/MiAmbiente website. Engineering literature (IADB, JICA, ICE) documents that El Cajón is instrumented with mechanical pendulums, inclinometers, V-notch weirs, and seismographs for structural safety monitoring, and reservoir level is tracked as elevation in meters above sea level (msnm). However, ENEE has not published an operational manual explaining how elevation readings are collected, calibrated, quality-controlled, or converted to storage volume. The IEASEN annual reports (SEN) do not include a chapter on hydrological measurement methodology. The IDB-HYDROGRID AI optimisation pilot announced in 2026 acknowledges gaps in data integration and real-time inflow forecasting at ENEE plants, implicitly confirming the absence of a mature, documented monitoring protocol.

All ENEE, CND, SEN, COPECO, and SANAA materials are exclusively in Spanish. The CND and ENEE websites carry no English-language pages or translations. The IEASEN annual reports, the Portal Único de Transparencia, and the datos.gob.hn open data portal are Spanish-only. International resources in English (Wikipedia, IADB energy dossier, IRENA 2023 Honduras assessment) provide contextual information but do not include access to operational reservoir level data. There is no machine-readable English-language endpoint for Honduran reservoir data.