Acciona secures US$264 million for 400 MW solar project in Mexico

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Acciona has announced that, alongside Tuto Energy, it has signed a financing agreement for the 404 MWp Puerto Libertad photovoltaic complex in Sonora, north-west Mexico. The two companies each own 50% stakes in the project, which will deliver one of the highest-capacity solar plants in Latin America.

North American Development Bank (NADB), Banco Nacional de Obras y Servicios of Mexico (BANOBRAS), Instituto de Crédito Oficial of Spain (ICO) and Banco Sabadell have agreed to provide US$264 million to the project. This finance is distributed equally between the four entities and has a repayment term of 18 years. 

The Puerto Libertad plant will be equipped with 1,222,800 polycrystalline silicon panels mounted on horizontal tracking structures. Construction of the complex began in February this year. It is expected to be fully operational in the first trimester of 2019.

With a total solar capture surface area of 2.4 km², it will produce 963 GWh of power per year, enough to cover the electricity demand of 583,000 Mexican homes. This production will avoid the emission of 925,443 tonnes of CO₂ from coal-fired power stations.

229 MWp of the power produced by Puerto Libertad will be supplied to the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), as the project was awarded 478.3 GWh and corresponding clean energy certificates in the CFE's second long-term electricity supply auction held in September 2016.

114 MWp will be purchased by a major Mexican industrial group though a private electricity purchase-and-sale contract sealed in February 2017, and the remaining 61 MWp will be allocated to marketing energy in the wholesale electricity market.

As well as being one of the largest renewable energy projects in Latin America, Puerto Libertad is ACCIONA Energía's biggest project to date.

It is one of several installations planned to take advantage of the considerable solar potential of Sonora. In April, Prodiel announced that it had been selected to construct a 144 MW photovoltaic power plant in the region by sponsor IEnova. Late last year, Canadian Solar was awarded power purchase agreements (PPAs) for three solar projects in Sonora with a total combined generation capacity of 458 MW.