Enel Green Power Helping Mexico Reach Green Targets

Mexico wants to increase the share of green energy in total installed capacity to 33 percent, and wind power is expected to increase its capacity from around 2.5GW to 9.5GW in the country, where EGP has an installed capacity of 399MW and where it will allocate a large portion of the investments set out in the Group’s new 2015-2019 Business Plan

When Mexico’s first wind farm was built back in 1994 at La Venta, on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the State of Oaxaca, it was not only the only wind power facility in Mexico, but in the whole of Latin America. Today Mexico is continuing that tradition of innovation by being one of the countries in the region that is most determined to develop not just wind power, but all green energy sources.

Mexico’s renewable energy development plan is ambitious: the government is aiming at increasing the share of green energy to 33 percent of the total installed capacity, 80 percent of which currently comes from fossil fuels and 17 percent from green energy sources. The government expects wind power to be a driving force in that development, as it set to more than triple its present installed capacity of around 2.5 gigawatts to 9.5GW.

Today Enel Green Power has an installed capacity of 399 megawatts in Mexico, of which 346MW comes from wind power and 53MW from hydropower. It is currently building its Dominica II wind farm, and at the beginning of March it completed and grid-connected the new Sureste I-Phase II wind farm in the State of Oaxaca, which required a total investment of almost $160 million. These figures confirm EGP’s particular focus on this country as part of its overall Latin American strategy.

Enel’s 2015-2019 Business Plan looks to the continent as a key market that can provide the additional capacity set out in the next five years. Around half of EGP’s investments for growth during the time span of the plan will be geared towards Chile, Mexico and Brazil, three countries that over the course of 2014 have made an important contribution to the growth of EGP both in terms of revenue (up 10.1 percent compared to 2013) and of EBITDA, which rose to just over €1.9 billion (up 9.2 percent compared to 2013).