Mexico pushing for Maya train sustainability with solar energy

Mexico’s government is evaluating the possibility of building new solar generation capacity to help power the flagship 161bn-peso (US$8bn) Maya train project in southeast Mexico.

According to documents issued by tourism board Fonatur, the entity plans to develop a series of clean energy projects on lands it owns or can secure that would allow the train to operate with clean energy.

Part of the electric energy generated would be channeled to supplying the train line and its stations. 

The documents outline a two-step process, where Fonatur will study and define an investment strategy that would allow it to design tender documents that would allow it to move forward with the projects. This will be conducted in collaboration with public utility CFE and potential lenders, Fonatur said.

The second step would involve defining 10 clean energy projects, requesting the necessary environmental permits and launching a tender for their construction. Fonatur expects these studies to be done by 2023.

While the studies are expected to specify the exact location of the projects, Fonatur said that the three states forming the Yucatán peninsula and Baja California Sur state in the northwest would be prioritized due to their access to sunshine and availability of plots of land. 

Fonatur has also identified attractive lots in the southern states of Oaxaca and Guerrero.

The initiative comes at a time when private investment in new renewable projects has been hurt by a long process of rules and permitting changes aimed at strengthening CFE and sidelining private energy producers.

The culmination of this was the introduction of a reform to Mexico’s general electricity law that would alter dispatch priority rules to favor CFE-owned plants and extend clean energy certificates, previously exclusive to non-conventional renewable projects, to the public firm’s nuclear and hydroelectric plants.