Italian energy giant Enel has bagged the rights to develop four wind projects with a combined capacity of 593MW in Mexico.
The projects were awarded to Enel’s renewable energy subsidiary Enel Rinnovabile by National Center for Energy Control (CENACE) during Mexico’s third Long Term Electricity Auction.
The four wind projects are the 100MW Amistad II, 100MW Amistad III, 149MW Amistad IV and the 244MW Dolores.
While Amistad II, III and IV wind plants will be constructed in Acuña, in Coahuila state, the Dolores wind project will come up in a municipality called China in Nuevo León state.
Enel plans to invest about $700m for the construction of the projects, which are slated to begin commercial operations in the first half of 2020.
Each of the four projects will be backed by a contract providing for the sale of specified volumes of energy to Mexico’s Cámara de Compensación for a period of 15 years and of the associated clean certificates for a period of 20 years.
The four wind projects, after becoming fully operational, are estimated to generate 2.09TWh/year of clean energy, thereby offsetting 960,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere each year.
Enel Green Power head Global Renewable Energies Division Antonio Cammisecra said: “Through this important win, we will significantly contribute to the country’s demand for electricity from renewable sources.
“This is just another step of our strategy in the country that we will implement through organic growth as well as through the ‘build, sell and operate’ model that enables us to leverage on our global pipeline, accelerating our growth worldwide.”
Mexico’s third Long Term Electricity Auction had seen five wind projects apart from 10 other renewable projects placed for auction. These included nine solar plants, five wind projects and a turbogas project having a combined capacity of 2.56GW, and expected to see an overall investment of $2.4bn.
Image: Enel will invest $700m in four wind projects in Mexico. Photo: courtesy of dan/FreeDigitalPhotos.net.