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Rolly

Dec 3, 2010, 9:15 AM

Post #1 of 7 (2107 views)

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More Wind Farms Coming to México

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Bimbo has announced that it will spend $200 million dollars to build a wind farm to supply the bulk of electricity needed for its México operations. Bimbo joins Cemex, Wal-Mart de Mexico and Soriana who have also launched wind farm projects in Mexico.

The wind farms provide power to CFE which in turn credits the factories and stores around the country.

Read more here.

Rolly Pirate

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mazbook1

Dec 3, 2010, 5:13 PM

Post #2 of 7 (2063 views)

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Re: [Rolly] More Wind Farms Coming to México

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I wonder where they are going to put them. We were passing through the Isthmus region back in July and there were already whole FORESTS of them. Impressive, but they sure ruin the view. LOL

Ustlach

Dec 6, 2010, 10:39 AM

Post #3 of 7 (1959 views)

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Re: [Rolly] More Wind Farms Coming to México

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I keep waiting for the punch line...surely this is a joke. Whenever do Mexicans think that far ahead?

I used to wonder why there is virtually no solar energy being created here in Sonora where there is more sunlight than sense, then it occurred to me...that is the answer. No one using much common sense in these parts.

I hope my local Soriana can use a little wind from one of those turbines and blow me up a couple of bottles of Coke Zero, which is as scarse as renewable energy here, apparently.

johanson

Dec 6, 2010, 7:09 PM

Post #4 of 7 (1925 views)

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Re: [Ustlach] More Wind Farms Coming to México

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Along the shores of Lake Chapala, the businesses that sell photo-voltaic solar panels are doing fairly well. With the price of electricity going up historically at more than 12% per year and where a KWH costs 7 to 8 times as much as it does in rain country, there is real motivation to invest in photo-voltaic panels. As panels drop in price and a KWH increases in price the "return on investment" period is getting shorter and shorter

If over a year you use more than 250 KWH per month lakeside (Which aint much) then you leave the economical government subsidized rates and start paying a fee of $84 pesos plus $3.67 pesos per KWH per month. Your bimonthly bill for 600KWH for the 2 month billing period, would be $84+ $84 + 600*$3.67 or a total of $2,370 pesos per billing period. That equates to $3.95 pesos per KWH or at 12.5 to 1, or 31.6 cents per KWH.

That's one heck of a lot more per unit of electricity than what most of us snow-birds pay up per unit of electricity. In Seattle, for example, rather than 31.6 cents per KWH, the rates are $4.62 cents per KWH for up to 960 KWH per two month period which is 4.62/31.6 or about 15% or about 1/7th as expensive.

I have twenty solar panels. and these days during the winter months when the sun isn't out that long, I'm averaging generating a little less than 20 KWH per day or about 575 KWH per month.

RickS

Dec 6, 2010, 7:45 PM

Post #5 of 7 (1921 views)

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Re: [johanson] More Wind Farms Coming to México

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I agree with your comment, Pete. But one thing that many of us in parts of western USA 'forget' is that our electricity is dirt cheap... the product of hydroelectric. Your 4.62 cents per kwh is easily half and maybe 1/3 of what others pay. My rate in Colorado (I get the benefit of some hydro and the also the fact that our electricity supplier is our non-profit municipality) is around 7 cents per kwh. Our for-profit suppliers, while still predominately coal, are using more and more wind farms and solar huge solar farms. And most power entities will buy-back any/all the power one can generate with 'home' photovoltaic panels.

richmx2

Dec 7, 2010, 12:12 PM

Post #6 of 7 (1878 views)

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Re: [Rolly] More Wind Farms Coming to México

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Bimbo's wind farm raises an interesting philosophical (and political... and economic) question. Who owns the wind? Or, who has rights to the energy produced by the wind? "All power to the people" isn't just a pie-eyed slogan here, but state policy and constitutional law. Hydro, petroleum, coal, etc. power are all treated as "national" (and natural) resources under state control, so I expect we'll be hearing more about the Bimbo plants in the near future.

The same issues apply to solar power. When I lived in the Texas Big Bend, there was a lot of talk about solar, the Big Bend being, like Sonara and Zacatecas, high altitude deserts — which the solar power enthusiasts say is the optimum conditions for capturing solar energy. Alas, deserts don't have a lot of water to support people (so just saying "if you build it they will come" isn't necessarily true if one wanted to develop employment opportunities and communities) and transmission costs are still too high to make it economically viable ... at this time. That could change, however.

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Rolly

Dec 16, 2010, 11:58 AM

Post #7 of 7 (1730 views)

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Re: [Rolly] More Wind Farms Coming to México

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From today's edition of Geo-México:

"According to the World Association of Wind Power, Mexico grew its wind power sector faster than any other country during 2009, and now has more than 500MW of installed windpower capacity.

Mexico’s goal is to have an installed capacity of 2,500 MW of wind energy by 2012, and to have 26% of the nation’s installed capacity coming from clean energy sources (solar, geothermal, wind, nuclear and large-scale HEP). The Federal Electricity Commission, responsible for the national power grid, is installing two “wind corridors” in Oaxaca to connect several different windpower plants into the grid."

(MW = megawatts)

Read the article here.

Rolly Pirate

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