Mexican authorities approve 90 MW solar project

Mexico’s Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) has released environmental approval for a large-scale PV projects planned for the municipality of Matamoros, in the northern state of Coahuila.

According to the Semarnat, a first 30 MW section of the project, named Proyecto Fotovoltaico Matamoros I, will be located in the area Predio Rustico Santo Niño Aguanaval Noacan and will include the installation of 111,762 modules with an output of 340 W, 30 inverters of 1 MW, and a substation in the same area of the project. This project is being proposed by the special purpose vehicle Matamoros Coahuila Fotovoltaicos, S.A.P.I. de C.V.

The other two 30 MW sections, which are being proposed by Creating Renewable Production S.A.P.I. de C.V. and Creación de Energía Sustentable S.A.P.I. de C.V., will be located in the same area and will have the same technical characteristics. Further details on the three projects were not provided by the Mexican government.

In the state of Coahuila there are currently two of the largest PV projects under development in Mexico and Latin America, the Villanueva and Villanueva 2 projects of Italian energy company Enel. The two proejcts, which have a capacity of 427 MW and 327 MW respectively, were selected in Mexico’s 2016 power auction, which was the first auction of its kind since the government introduced an energy reform. In this auction, around 1 GW of installed PV power was allocated.