However, a project dubbed Eólica del Sur, Sydvind, which has been given the go-ahead involving the Danish firm Vestas, has been drawing fire from indigenous peoples in the Oaxaca region. The Mexican government is being accused of going ahead with the project and riding roughshod over the feelings of the people living in the area – one of the poorest in Mexico.

Impact on People Mexico

Mexico's grid operator and regulator Cenace (the National Energy Control Centre) has scrapped plans for the country's 5.9TWh clean energy tender. It had previously suspended the auction in December, a day before bids were due, and two days after new president Andrés Miguel López Obrador was sworn in.

Energy Policy Mexico

With several large investors already lined up for the tender, the cancellation will raise doubts about the continuation of Mexico’s clean energy programme. The government said that although investors can contest the cancellation, it will not refund what companies spent to prepare for the process.

General Mexico

Mexico’s grid operator and regulator Cenace (the National Energy Control Centre) stated the suspension would allow president Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s new administration to review the tender mechanism’s scope and objectives. ...Results of the tender were initially due to be announced on 2 November, but this was pushed back to 18 December to provide greater visibility, Cenace stated.

Energy Policy Mexico

A group of activists filed the injunction request on the grounds that the rights of local indigenous communities were violated during the planning and development process for the US $600-million project.

Impact on People Mexico

Yesterday, the municipal representative in Pueblo Viejo, Francisco Álvarez, led a group of supporters to the beach where they set fire to some 20 palapa-roofed houses belonging to the fishermen. ...The fishermen claim that Álvarez wants to force them to leave the land so the municipality can grant it to the wind farm project. 

Impact on People Mexico

Late last month, Sedena sought to initiate legal action against Tradeco to secure 595 million pesos (US $30.9 million) in compensation for failing to comply with the contract it signed and a 374-million-peso (US $19.4-million) payment because no energy was produced at the base between March 2014, when the project was supposed to be completed, and June 2018.

Legal Mexico

This informative essay describes the reasons for opposition to wind power development in Mexico. 

General Mexico

Judges from Mexico’s highest court unanimously decided to grant an amparo, or injunction, to members of the Zapotec community in Juchitán on the grounds that they hadn’t been consulted or given their permission or authorization for the project to go ahead on their land.

Legal Mexico

Some 500 people from Unión Hidalgo marched Saturday to protest the planned Gunaa Sicarú wind farm that firm Eléctricité de France (EDF) plans to build, according to local media reports. The coastal town and fishing community of Unión Hidalgo is inhabited by people of the indigenous Zapoteco ethnic group, who claim to not have been consulted about the planned project.

Impact on People Mexico

Flor, who owns the land where the turbine is sited and rents it to EDF, said she arrived on the scene after being alerted by a neighbor. “The stench was terrible, like a sort of burned fuel or ammonia,” she said, asking not to be identified by her surname out of concern over reprisals. “The trees were glistening with oil.” Similar problems have been reported all along the Tehuantepec isthmus, one of the western hemisphere’s windiest places.

Pollution Mexico

Acciona turbine leaks oil and hydraulic fluids at an operating wind plant sited along the Tehuantepec isthmus in Mexico. Similar complaints of pollution have been reported throughout the area.

Pollution Mexico

Besides the lack of information, and of free, prior and informed consent, as the law and international conventions require, indigenous people complain about impacts on migratory birds, rise in temperatures in areas with solar panels and water pollution caused by leaks from wind towers. ... the process of energy development has legal loopholes that have to do with superficial contracts and environmental impact studies.

Impact on People Mexico

Renewable energy from south of the border is beginning to make a big impact on the American side. Looming over the dry desert scrub, as high as a 25-story building, the giant turbines of the Energía Sierra Juárez wind farm punctuate the horizon just south of the California border, an otherworldly array of white tubular towers each topped with three, 12-ton blades.

Legal Mexico California

This important decision by the U.S. District Court of the Southern District in California found that the Department of Energy failed to follow NEPA when it issued a permit to construct a transmission line that crossed over from Mexico into the United States. The Court order that since the U.S. portion of the Line and the Mexican portion of the Line were literally "two links of a single chain" connecting the Substation to the ESJ Wind Farm, the DOE was required to consider the impacts of the project on Mexico. Portions of the decision are shown below. The full report can be accessed by clicking the document link on this page.

Legal Transmission Mexico California USA

Mexican and foreign energy companies have paid off local power brokers to bring landowners on board, according to lawyers and activists. Yet in some cases, money they had donated for social projects evaporated in the hands of municipal officials. “We’ve had years of wind projects, but poverty is the same.”

Impact on Landscape Impact on People Mexico

Dutch pension fund manager PGGM is abandoning a 396-MW project in Mexico after several years of delays due to community resistance, Dutch media reported this week.

General Mexico

On the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a strong wind is always blowing, which makes it one of the best places in the world to generate wind energy. Since 1994, 24 wind farms have been erected in the region. One proposal, to be funded by Dutch pension fund manager PGGM would include 132 turbines. At 396 megawatts, it would be the largest wind farm in Mexico. The project is budgeted at 750 million euros. Other investors to the project included Mitsubishi and the Australian investment group Macquarie.

General Mexico

The analysis also reveals that the well publicized U.S. wind drought of early 2015 – which hit wind farms in California and Texas particularly hard – also had a far-reaching effect on much of northern and central Mexico: First-quarter wind speeds in this region were 5%-20% below normal.

General Mexico

This useful paper provides a detailed review of wind energy development in southern Mexico and the resulting opposition to the projects. Excerpts of the paper are provided below. The full paper can be accessed by selecting the links on this page. 

Impact on People Energy Policy Mexico