Last week, Mexico held their last energy auction, to secure part of the electricity which consumers will waste over the next years. According to official sources, the average value of the prices of the winning projects was 20.57 dollars per megawatt hour. It was a significant decrease from the last price of 33.47 USD/MWh of the second tender of September 2016, and from the 41.80 USD/MWh of the first tender of March 2016.
Among all the winning projects of the Mexican auction, the minimum price was bid by the energy utility Enel, which set out a new world record-low price for electricity with 17.7 dollars per megawatt hour, obtained from two solar power plants to be located in Mexico. According to ‘electrek.co’, these two plats will total 289 megawatts, generating more than 883 GWh per year, with a capacity factor of 35%.
The previous world-low record was established in Saudi Arabia in October with a minimum price of 17.9 dollars per megawatt hour.
The Mexican authorities will invest around 2.4 billion dollars over the next three years to fund new sixteen electricity generation plants which are awarded to receive a fixed tariff after the third long-term power auction in the country, which returned falling prices for clean energy energy, solar (55% of the awarded energy) and wind (45% of the energy).
An event will be held in Mexico on 22 November 2017 to unveil the details of the winning bids. The awarded plants of this auction must come into operation between July 2019 and June 2020, as stated in the bids, and will be an important step forward to ensure the reliable operation of the Mexican National Electric System and to meet the goal of 35% share of clean energy in 2024.
