|
Mexico Photovoltaic technology status and prospects Jaime Agredano, J. Huacuz Villamar Electrical Research Institute (IIE) |
home
> annual reports
> annual report
2003 > |
Rural electrification continues as the main but not the only PV use in Mexico.
Professional installations within the national oil company to power non-manned
oil rigs and telecommunications repeating stations at difficult access sites,
are some of the applications where PV technology competes with traditional energy
supplies. Small water pumps have been installed to irrigate small agricultural
land, livestock watering and fence energizing. No further grid connected systems
were set up during 2003, but performance monitoring continues.
The research on PV-wind hybrids focused on the monitoring and data analysis of the San Juanico Hybrid system. This system provides energy to a fishing and tourism services provider community located on the Pacific coast of Baja California. The research work has been carried out by the Mexican national utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) in collaboration with Arizona Public Service, a US-based utility.
During 2003, the Mexican Utility (CFE) supported a project to
evaluate more than 100 Solar Home Systems installed over 10 year ago in three isolated communities located in the mountains of the western state of Nayarit . The relevance of the project resides in the fact that those systems are the first ones to be evaluated 10 years after their installation. The results from this study will help determine the effectiveness and usefulness of PV as an alternative for rural electrification, and will point out the problems arising both on the technical and non-technical side of the PV technology.
[ Top ]
No progress has been reported on the second stage of the PV Rural Electrification
Programme announced by the Federal Government early last year. Nevertheless, installation
of SHS continues its historical trend; which is now carried out mainly by municipal
governments and the private sector. State governments continue using PV to provide
energy to remote schools and rural clinics in areas where the national grid is
not available. In the telecommunications sector, PV continues to be used to energize
remote links, repeaters and satellite telephone services.
The Shared Risk Trust Fund of the Federal Secretariat of Agriculture and Livestock FIRCO (as known by its Spanish abbreviation) is carrying out projects for water pumping, electric fences, and cold tanks for milk storage. FIRCO is also providing training courses on productive uses of PV. These activities are co-financed by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), the Federal Government and the beneficiaries. Under this programme during 2003, around 400 PV water pumping systems were installed, with an installed power capacity of more than 200 kW. FIRCO also offered 20 training courses on PV water pumping or productive uses of PV.
[ Top ]
The
Mexican PV market for 2003 was close to 1 000 kW. The market segmentation was
as described. Rural Electrification remains the main application for PV in Mexico,
with an installed capacity of 620 kW; professional applications (telecommunications,
off shore oil platforms and cathodic protection) 240 kW; water pumping 80 kW;
and others 8 kW. The cumulative PV installation in Mexico by the end of 2003 was
1711 MWp. The numbers reported here do not include the sales of PV modules and
systems taking place along the Mexico-USA border cities, where no record of imports
is kept, due to the tax-free status of the region.
It is expected that grid-connected PV will have a role to play, so that current R&D efforts will have to move forward to tackle market penetration issues. Rural Electrification is also expected to regain its importance in the coming years. SHS will continue to be the preferred technical and economical alternative to provide electricity for the thousands of isolated communities in Mexico, still lacking this service.
[ Top ]