Mexico’s Rooftop Solar Growth Slows

Mexico City — The installation of rooftop solar arrays in Mexico slowed during the first half of this year, after last year’s figures also showed a slowdown compared with the previous year.

Interconnection requests for PV power plants with capacity of less than 0.5 MW totaled 30,118, a 5.4% year-over-year drop, according to the most recent figures from the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE).

Installed capacity increased 12% to 276 MW during first half, compared to the previous half, to total 2,307 MW.

The state of Jalisco, Nuevo Léon, Chihuahua, Estado de México and Guanajuato lead the way in the number of contracts and the installed capacity of rooftop arrays, while those with the lowest number of contracts and least capacity are Tlaxcala, Campeche, Chiapas, Tabasco and Oaxaca.

Net metering continues to be the model with the most contracts (266,624).

Distributed generation does not require a permit from CRE for households and businesses to use clean technologies for electricity production.

The Mexican government has expressed its support for solar rooftop arrays, but also tried to change the Constitution in October 2001 in a bid to favor state-owned electric power utility CFE.

Mexico’s Energy Minister Rocío Nahle García said at the time however that the proposal was not against the installation of solar rooftop arrays. However, the proposal was thrown out by Congress, and the current model, which allows for distributed generation, remains in force.

Nahle tweeted her and the government’s support for rooftop arrays in October of last year.