Mexican development bank keen to support energy sector

Mexican development bank Nacional Financiera (Nafin) has created a commission that will be implemented throughout the country to support medium-sized energy projects.

This is according to Leticia Robles De las Fuentes, Nafin's director for the northern state of Coahuila, who was reported as saying ahead of a natural gas conference in Mexico City that the bank is conducting research to find the first five medium-sized natural gas or renewable energy projects looking for investment of between US$20-50mn.

"Nacional Financiera is very interested in supporting the energy sector in Mexico," she said, and referred to the energy cluster in Coahuila, where various energy projects are under development, according to FC Gas Intelligence.

Coahuila is set to increase its installed renewable energy capacity and will see US$473mn invested in three wind farms as a result of the country's third long-term electric power auction.

The state government anticipated last June that up to US$1bn will be invested in renewable energy projects in the state over the coming years.

Two of Coahuila's major cities, Matamoros and Torreón (pictured), are already supplied with electricity from the 20MW Coahuila solar park, in which the government invested US$44.5mn and, in addition to wind power, the state is expected to be among those that see major growth in solar power capacity over the coming years.

Nafin signed a memorandum of understanding with the European Investment Bank (EIB) in March last year aimed at supporting projects to combat the effects of climate change, and particularly renewable energy projects.

Nafin has previously financed renewable energy projects in Mexico with the support of the Clean Technology Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). In 2014, the three institutions provided financing for projects including the 30MW Aura Solar photovoltaic plant in Baja California Sur state, the 164MW Eoliatec wind farm in Oaxaca and the 150MW Ventika wind farm (pictured) in Nuevo León.

In 2014, Nafin and HSBC also launched a fund to finance local energy firms.