Acciona breaks ground on 404 MW solar park in Mexico

Spanish renewable energy company, Acciona has begun construction on its Puerto Libertad solar complex, a 404 MW PV project that is being developed under a 50% consortium with Tuto Energy Trading.

According to Acciona, the project is expected be completed in the last quarter of this year, while commercial operation is planned to start in the first three months of 2019.

Of the 404 MW (DC), 229 MW will sell power to local power utility, CFE under a contract awarded to the consortium in Mexico’s second long-term power auction, which was held in September 2016; while another 114 MW will sell electricity to the facilities of an “important” unidentified Mexican industrial group under a long-term PPA, signed by Acciona’s partner Tuto Energy, which will be responsible for the supply of energy to the industrial group.

As for the remaining 61 MW, the energy will be sold to the Mexican wholesale market. Acciona said that the dimension of the project has been expanded “in order to optimize its generation capacity in an area of ​​magnificent solar resource.”

The solar park will be located about 200 kilometers northwest of Hermosillo, the capital of the state of Sonora. The facility will use 1,222,800 polycrystalline modules from an unspecified producer and horizontal tracking systems.

Acciona aims to surpass 2 GW of operational power assets in Latin America in 2020. The company currently owns 897 MW of wind and PV capacity in the region (in Chile, Mexico and Costa Rica).

In Chile, Acciona is operating the El Romero Solar PV plant in the Atacama desert. At 246 MW, it is the largest in Latin America. It was grid connected in November 2016.