Mexico Planning $46 Billion Coast-to-Coast Wind Energy Push

Mexico is planning to quadruple its wind-power capacity as part of President Enrique Pena Nieto’s effort to transform the country’s energy industry.

The country expects to have about 10 gigawatts of turbines in operation within three years spread across almost every region, up from 2.5 gigawatts in 2014, part of a government plan to add 20 gigawatts of clean energy by 2030, according to Mexico’s Wind Energy Association.

A total of 22 gigawatts of wind power will be added over the next 25 years, requiring $46 billion in investment. The wind push is due to two converging trends: Mexico’s historic shift from a state-controlled energy monopoly, and its efforts to transform a grid that relies on fossil fuels for three-fourths of the nation’s electricity.

“We’re already a new country,” Alejandro Peraza, general director of the energy regulator CRE, said in an interview in Mexico City. “Mexico is getting cleaner.”

Mexico is Latin America’s largest crude producer and the world’s No. 10 producer of greenhouse-gas emissions. It was the first developing country to submit its plan to reduce carbon emissions before a United Nations conference in Paris in December where almost 200 countries are expected to sign a deal to fight global warming.

Mexico pledged to reduce 22 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Wider use of renewable energy will reduce fossil-fuel based power generation to 45 percent.

“There is a clear national policy on climate change taking place,” said Peraza. “We are going in the direction of a low carbon economy.”

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