Recharge News
While largely successful to date, Mexico's clean-energy auctions need a pre-qualification system to weed out speculative bidders, says GWEC secretary-general Steve Sawyer
Mexico should move to discourage speculators in its clean-energy auctions by embracing a pre-qualification system similar to those in place in Brazil and South Africa, says Steve Sawyer, secretary-general at the Global Wind Energy Council.
Mexico’s first three clean-energy auctions, held between March 2016 and November 2017, have been hailed as a landmark in the global renewables market, with average prices falling from $47.78/MWh in the first auction to a stunning $20.57/MWh in the most recent, including a record-low wind bid.
If all the contracted plants from the first three auctions were to get built, the country would add 7.5GW of new solar and wind over the next few years – a huge jump on its current base of around 5GW.
