Mexico a Solar Energy Gold Mine

December 9th, 2010 by Zachary Shahan

A new report out from Mexico’s energy department, SENER, delves deeply into the nation’s vast solar energy potential, which is well above that of current solar energy leaders Germany and Spain. The report, Solar Energy Sector has a ton of info on the solar potential of Mexico, but here are a number of key findings:

Only 0.06% of Mexico (in land area) would be needed to power the entire nation from solar energy (according to 2005 usage rates).
“Mexico’s average solar resources for PV (5 kWh/m2/day) are more than 60% higher than the best solar in Germany (5.4 GW of installed PV).”
“PV installed in many cities across Northern and Central Mexico has an ‘energy payback time’ (EPBT) of less than two years.”
“Northern Mexico’s Direct Normal Insolation is equivalent to the best in the U.S. Southwest and in the North African deserts.”

Of course, Mexico isn’t living up to its solar potential yet. “Mexico is seriously underdeveloped in terms of solar energy technologies like solar photovoltaic (PV), concentrating solar power (CSP) and passive solar thermal (i.e., hot water heating),” CalFinder Solar reports. “For example, as of a 2007-08 report – Mexico Solar Installations by Type – there are no concentrating solar power plants in Mexico, and 80 percent of the solar PV installations are not grid-connected. Moreover, 78 percent of the solar thermal installations are for heating swimming pools rather than residential wash water.”

With Mexico City signing historic climate change legislation last week and the “Renewable Energy Development and Financing for Energy Transition Law” (LAERFTE in Mexico) in place since November 2008, hopefully the country will be tapping into its solar resources a lot more soon.

Image via Greentech Media

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Tags: LAERFTE, Mexico, Renewable Energy Development and Financing for Energy Transition Law, SENER, Solar Energy Sector

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

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Wayne Williamson

I have to question the 5kw per square meter per day…a really good solar panel might push 200 watts per hour…so unless they have 25 hours of noon day sun…..
Bob Wallace

I’m betting we see lots ofsolar-produced electricity shipped from ‘upper Baja’ into the US Southwest grid before too many more years.

There’s lots of sun and wind, environmental considerations are going to be taken lightly, lots of cheap labor, close to San Diego.

Apparently there is already panel manufacturing along the boarder.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/07/baja_solar.php

Construction is scheduled to begin next year on a one gigawatt storage facility which will store wind and solar power for sale north into the US.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN0817765420101209