Today, Mexico produces around 20% of its electricity through renewable sources like wind, solar, geothermal or biomass. However, the plans of the Federal Government are even more ambitious, and they will try that half of the electricity comes from renewables by the year 2050.
For this purpose, the country started in 2016 to hold renewable power tenders, after the constitutional reform approved in 2013, and the associated secondary legislations adopted in 2014 and 2015. With this regulation, auctions will be held at least once a year, and the winners will sign 15-year power purchase agreements with the state-owned utility ‘Comisión Federal de Electricidad’ (CFE) for clean energy, and 20-year contracts for clean energy certificates.
Mexico has held two tenders so far, in the first one 5.4 TWh of renewable energy were allocated, and 8.9 TWh in the second one. The projects awarded in these two auctions must be injecting energy into the grid in 2018. The prices after the tenders were really attractive: average pricing was 53 US dollars per megawatt-hour in the first auction, and fell to 37 dollars per megawatt-hour in the second, both values much below the current market electricity prices.
Now, the third tender will start in May 2017, and the list of eligible bidders for the process will be released on July 31. The main target of this new tender is that 35% of the electricity consumed in Mexico is generated with energy sources by 2024, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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