Small, Medium Installations Drive Growth in Photovoltaic Industry
Home > Energy > Article

Small, Medium Installations Drive Growth in Photovoltaic Industry

Photo by:   Nuno Marques
Share it!
Karin Dilge By Karin Dilge | Journalist and Industry Analyst - Tue, 05/23/2023 - 06:02

Despite the auction cancellations by the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Mexican photovoltaic sector highlights continuous growth in the photovoltaic industry, especially driven by small and medium installations.

Aldo Díaz Nuño, National President, Council of Professionals in Photovoltaic Energy (CPEF), foresees that this positive increase will be sustained in 2023 and suggests changes in the regulatory framework that would boost solar generation. 

Mexico, with a growth of 8.53% in contracts, is finally breaking the streak of decline that it had been experiencing since the second half of 2021, which was historically unprecedented. This growth, though not even close to the rate of increases before 2021, instills confidence that Mexico will show positive figures in 2023. The ideal expectation is for an 18% increase in the number of contracts and a 28% increase in installed capacity.

According to CRE, national distributed generation grew almost 30% between 2021 and 2022. By the end of 2022, installed capacity reached 2.6GW. Despite this, investments did not advance as expected. 

In 2022, distributed power generation grew 598.5MW, going from 2.03GW to 2.6GW, which represented an increase of 29.4%. CRE’s report shows that of the total volume of installed capacity, 247.59MW, or 9.4%, corresponds to Small and Medium Scale Interconnection Contracts (CIPyME), which is equivalent to 6.3% of total national net energy demand.

On one hand, consumer confidence was regained by the end of 2022 while at the same time, projects with a capacity of over 100kW experienced the highest growth.

Solar power player Ginlong Solis reported that energy storage covers between 10 and 15% of the DG capacity systems for homes and businesses in Mexico. In 2023, experts estimate that DG could add more than 500MW of capacity to the country. "Our market reaches from 500-600MW and approximately 10 to 15% of the systems have energy storage. There are regions in the country, such as Merida, where storing energy is a necessity. Many houses are left without a stable energy service or have no electricity at all. So here, the percentage of this kind of technology installation is very high,” said Sergio Rodríguez, Service Manager for Mexico and Latin America, Ginlong Solis.

Rodríguez stressed that the adoption of solar energy in Mexico for the residential sector and small businesses is thriving. In 2023, solar DG could add more than 500MW to the national energy grid and generate more than 60,000 new contracts.

Photo by:   Nuno Marques

You May Like

Most popular

Newsletter