Popular Power Unlocks Over US$500,000 in I-REC Revenue

Distributed solar energy in Mexico is increasingly participating in international environmental markets, generating tangible financial value for operators and helping align renewable deployment with corporate decarbonization goals. Technology platform Popular Power said its solar asset management tools have enabled its partners to generate more than US$500,000 in revenue from International Renewable Energy Certificates (I-RECs), with expectations that the total will exceed US$1 million in 2026. The company’s announcement adds to a growing narrative around distributed generation’s rising role in Mexico’s energy transition.

Popular Power manages a large portfolio of distributed solar systems through its data analytics, performance monitoring and revenue-governance platform. According to the company, the clean energy managed on behalf of its partners generates the equivalent of annual electricity consumption for roughly 200,000 households, illustrating both the scale of distributed solar deployment and its potential to contribute to Mexico’s overall renewable capacity.

A core function of the platform is enabling smaller solar portfolios to register and trade I-RECs. These certificates represent the environmental attributes of 1MWh of renewable electricity and are increasingly bought by corporations seeking to match their electricity consumption with renewables. The I-REC market was dominated by utility-scale projects, and distributed generation systems often lacked the data governance and verification processes needed to participate. Popular Power’s technology automates site-level and portfolio-level analytics, correlates production data with registry requirements and prioritizes alerts that affect revenue, substantially lowering the operational barrier for I-REC participation.

The new milestone comes at a time when demand for I-RECs in Mexico is rising due to global corporate decarbonization commitments and the expansion of electricity-intensive sectors such as manufacturing, logistics and data centers. Electricity demand tied to data centers and industrial activity is pushing stakeholders to seek clean energy solutions, making distributed generation and renewable attribute markets increasingly relevant to energy strategy. Data center operators, in particular, are signing power purchase agreements (PPAs) and purchasing environmental attributes to meet sustainability targets, creating demand signals for renewable deployment outside centralized auctions.

Popular Power says its platform now represents more than 40% of all Mexican solar systems registered in the international I-REC registry, including what it describes as the first residential solar portfolio registered in Latin America. Participation in I-REC markets not only provides an additional revenue stream but also helps build a market-based price signal for distributed solar generation, potentially improving the bankability of future projects.

Several companies have already benefited from the I-REC market through Popular Power’s tools. Banverde, a solar project financier focused on commercial and industrial clients, highlighted that professional monitoring and governance were critical to its ability to generate certificate revenues. Forefront Power, a solar developer active in both Mexico and the United States, noted that converting production data into both environmental and financial value has strengthened its business model.

Mexico’s broader solar landscape provides an essential backdrop for this development. The country now has over 12.6GW of installed solar capacity, of which approximately 35%, or 4.4GW, is distributed generation. In 2024, distributed solar installations in Mexico exceeded 1GW for the first time in a single year, growing nearly 49% year-over-year, even as utility-scale solar additions slowed to their lowest level since 2017. The rapid growth of behind-the-meter solar reflects both declining equipment costs and increased corporate interest in onsite generation, particularly where grid constraints or market design limits the pace of centralized projects.

Distributed generation is becoming a key growth driver in the country’s energy transition, especially amid grid congestion and long permitting timelines for large renewable plants. Moreover, as the government and state energy entities pursue hybrid public-private strategies to reach capacity goals under the Mixed Development Schemes and other frameworks, distributed and decentralized solutions provide a complementary path to increasing renewable supply while enabling local economic benefits.

Critically, environmental markets such as I-RECs give distributed solar developers and owners a way to monetize emissions reductions in addition to energy savings. This is particularly important in Mexico, where the wholesale electricity market has historically offered limited price signals for renewables outside of formal auctions. By participating in I-REC markets, distributed solar projects can create credits valued by international and multinational buyers, effectively pricing “greenness” into solar generation.

Looking ahead, Popular Power plans to continue expanding its environmental market capabilities and replicate its model in other Latin American countries. Given the region’s strong solar resource, growing corporate demand for renewable attributes, and increasing interest in decentralized energy, the expansion of I-REC participation from distributed solar could become a significant component of broader clean energy investment flows.