AMLO opens Puerto Penasco's 1st phase solar-storage plant in Sonora

Mexico’s president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, popularly known as AMLO, on Friday inaugurated the first phase of the Puerto Penasco solar-plus-storage power plant in the Mexican state of Sonora, a project that will eventually grow to 1,000 MW of solar capacity with 192 MW of batteries.

It is a project developed by Mexico’s state-owned utility Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE), which will build the plant in three phases.

The first one has 120 MW of solar power and 12 MW of batteries as backup. The second phase, which is already under construction, will add another 300 MW of solar and 60 MW of batteries, CFE said.

Another feature of the Puerto Penasco project is that the electricity from the solar farm will reach the Baja California peninsula, which is isolated from the rest of the national grid, thanks to new transmission lines.

CFE did not say when the third and final phase is expected to commence. Once the project is finalised, the 2,000-hectare Puerto Penasco solar farm will be capable of powering some 1.6 million people, according to the utility. At present, its first phase is one of three solar PV farms in Mexico that is equipped with energy storage, the company said.

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