According to the Climatescope report released this week by the energy analysis firm Bloomberg BNEF, Mexico was the main destination for investments in clean energy in Latin America in 2017. The report highlighted that investments in clean energy increased more than six times from 2016 to 2017, with a value of 200 million dollars in 2017.
The document noted that such record investments were the result of “strong policy support aimed at achieving ambitious national clean energy commitments in the short term.” This came as a result of the energy reform initiated in 2013, which aimed to support the renewable energy sector by generating a boost for investment in clean energy.
According to Bloomberg BNEF, in Mexico there has been a “successful implementation of clean energy auctions” that have contracted about 20 Terawatts/hour of clean energy and a capacity of 1.8 Gigawatts. The Clean Energy Certificates (CEL) market was also created, which has fostered an aggressive national and foreign interest and has resulted in a significant series of solar and wind projects.
The document clarified that although the generation matrix of Mexico continues to be dominated by thermal sources at present, renewable energies dominate the new capacity additions.
“The excellent solar and wind resources of the country, the rapid decrease in costs and the maturing of the financial landscape for new projects are allowing rapid growth that will put pressure on the natural gas sector in the following years,” according to the report. He also stated that Mexico is a very promising potential market for distributed generation, with 434 megawatts accumulated at the end of 2017, the largest in Latin America.
Source: El Universal
