Canadian Solar has won auction to build three solar plants totaling 367MW in Aguascalientes, Hermosillo and Obregón, Mexico.
This was Mexico’s third round of long-term auction for renewables and it was conducted on November 15.
The three projects are expected to be completed and connected to the grid by June 2020.
The clean electricity generated from these three solar plants will be bought by Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), under a 15 year power purchase agreement for energy and 20 year for clean energy certificates at an average price of $21/MWh.
Canadian Solar chairman and CEO Shawn Qu said: "We are delighted to win an additional 367MW of solar projects in Mexico, which expands our late-stage solar project pipeline in the country to 435MW.
"We will continue to develop and deliver more quality solar projects in Mexico, while contributing to the government's goal of increasing electricity generated from clean energy sources to 35 percent by 2024 and 50 percent by 2050."
In this auction, CFE has purchased 5,492,575MWh, 5,952,575 CELs, and 593MW of clean energy. A total of 46 economic bids were submitted in the auction.
Clean energy projects awarded in this auction have a combined capacity of 2.73GW with solar was the main contributor, accounting for 55% of the total winning projects.
Recently, Canadian Solar along with EDF Energies Nouvelles has commissioned two solar projects in Brazil totalling 284MW. The projects are 191.5MW Pirapora I and 92.5MW Pirapora III, which are part of the Pirapora projects (399MW).
Each plant has secured 20 year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Power Commercialisation Chamber (CCEE), after the second and the first Reserve Energy Auctions conducted in 2015 and 2014, respectively.
The Pirapora I plant and Pirapora III plant include 600,000 and 290,000 of Canadian Solar’s CS6U-P solar modules, respectively.
Image: Canadian Solar to construct 367MW solar plants in Mexico. Photo: Courtesy of Neville Micallef/FreeImages.com.