Mexico: More than a breeze?

As Mexico is past peak oil, its government realises the need to look for new sources of energy to fuel its economy. With global climate change a key issue, Mexico is looking to seize the opportunity for a greener energy mix. Its fledgling wind power sector promises vast potential.

With a 5.3 per cent drop to 3.082mbd in 2007 crude oil output when compared with the previous year, the Mexican government realises the nation’s oil fields will not continue to supply the nation with the considerable quantities of energy it requires. Linked to the country’s maturing oil fields, including the giant Cantarell field, the trend continued last year, when 2.781mbpd were produced. The fall in crude output has led to the government recognising the need for diversification of its energy mix if it is to keep Mexico’s economy ticking over and to realise its economic expansion plans.

While in 2006, oil accounted for 55 per cent of total energy consumption, it is expected that this share will decrease in favour of natural gas. Gas is forecast to increasingly replace oil as a feedstock in power generation and climb from its 2006 share of 32 per cent. However, as a net importer of natural gas, this trend is forecast to increase the country’s dependence on foreign suppliers for its energy security.

Bringing renewables into the equation

Cue the global climate change debate and no big leap in one’s imagination is required to realise the potential benefits of introducing renewable energy sources into Mexico’s energy mix. Mexico’s National Development Plan 2007-12 places environmental sustainability at the heart of its public policies and demonstrates the government’s desire to reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels. This is also reflected in its Energy Sector Programme for 2007-12, which aims “to develop the technically, economic, environmental and socially-viable supply of renewable energy sources and biofuels”.

For Mexico, increasing use of renewable energy sources:
• reduces the environmental pressures on its natural resources
• strengthens the country’s position in terms of energy security
• renders the economy less prone to the volatility of fossil fuel prices.

And Mexico appears well placed to carry out its goals. Its high levels of insolation, areas with constant and intense wind currents, key hydropower and geothermal resources and large volumes of biomass offer the potential to develop a significant renewables sector. In its Energy Sector Programme, the government aims to increase the share of renewables in the electricity generation capacity from 23 per cent in 2006 to 26 per cent by the end of the programme’s horizon in 2012.

For now, the capacity installed is much more modest. In 2008, Mexico’s renewable energy sector had an installed generation capacity of 1924.82MW or 3.3 per cent of the country’s total installed generation capacity. Just over half of this capacity can be attributed to its geothermal power sector with a further 498.11MW or 0.9 per cent of renewable energy delivered by biomass and biogass projects. Hydropower supplies 0.6 per cent (376.95MW) of capacity while wind accounts for a small share of 85.25MW or 0.1 per cent.

From first steps to key projects

While wind power currently accounts for only a small part of the country’s renewable energy generation, not to mention the total energy mix, the sector is believed to have significant potential. The government’s plans, laid out in its Energy Sector Programme, are ambitious. It wants the isthmus region to produce 2500MW within three years, effectively catapulting the country into the world’s top 12 producers of wind energy.

Mexico took its first steps on this journey in 1994. One year later, the first stage of La Venta in wind-rich Oaxaca was commissioned. Seven generators, driven by Vestas turbines, supplied 1.5MW of energy with further stages on the government’s planning board. These included an additional 83.3MW or 98 generators installed at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec site, effectively marking a second stage, known as La Venta II. Baja California became the home to the 0.6MW Guerrero Negro plant in 1998.

Spanish wind company Gamesa registered with the UN late-2005 its first Mexican wind power project in La Ventosa Oaxaca, under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), christening it “Bii Nee Stipa” (“Wind that brings power”). With an envisaged power rating of 200MW, the project was the largest registered at the UN at the time and its operation was calculated to reduce CO₂ output by around 300,000tpa. It also marked another key milestone in Mexican wind park developement as it was the first wind farm to be entirely privately-funded.