Mexico's photovoltaic capacity reaches 5.5 GW in March

The electricity sector thus added 500 new MW to Mexico’s photovoltaic capacity at the end of the first quarter of the year, continuing the positive trend of the previous year.

Mexico’s renewable energy sector is doing well, especially in the photovoltaic sector. According to the Mexican Solar Energy Association (Asolmex), Mexico’s photovoltaic capacity reached 5.5 GW in March, thus adding 500 MW of new renewable solar energy capacity to the country’s energy mix. Thus, the Aztec country distributes this capacity in 67 photovoltaic plants spread across 17 different states.

If it were necessary to highlight which have been the major projects of the Mexican photovoltaic industry during the past year, one name stands out above the rest: Villa Ahumada. This complex, with a capacity of 150 MW, required an investment of 145 million dollars and is located in the state of Chihuahua.

On the other hand, according to information from the portal Energías Renovables, Asolmex claims to have up to 22 different projects, derived from the electricity auctions, in the commercial operation phase that would add up to 3,187 MW, with a total investment of 5,000 million dollars.

Far from the large photovoltaic installations, Mexico also has 818 MW of photovoltaic energy distributed among a total of 12,660 residential, commercial or industrial users. This other source of generation, called distributed or small producers, joins forces with the aforementioned, reaching an investment of 8.5 billion dollars and the creation of a total of 64,000 direct and indirect jobs, according to the Mexican association itself.

Mexican photovoltaics, launched since 2019

These favorable data obtained during March only support the trend towards increasing investment in photovoltaic energy by the North American country, shared with more and more countries. If Mexico had only 460 MW of solar energy at the end of the first half of 2017, last year the country increased this type of electricity generation by 62% compared to the previous year, reaching 5 GW.

Asolmex itself assures that the country’s photovoltaic potential is very far from the currently installed figure, reaching to the 84 GW of potential capacity and stating that “in the residential sector alone, up to 70% of its electricity consumption can be supplied by a capacity of 25 GW of solar roofs that could be reached by 2030.”