The US will invest US$17 billion if Mexico meets clean energy goal

The United States government estimates a direct investment of US$17 billion if Mexico meets the goal of 35% clean energy generation by 2024, according to a document prepared by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

The research and development center of the US Department of Energy detailed in the Mexico Clean Energy Report the country’s opportunity to generate more than 72,000 full-time jobs.

“Some of the benefits of achieving this goal include: reducing electricity production costs by US$1.1 billion in a business scenario; approximately US$17 billion of direct investment”, concludes the report.

The document also highlights the possible diversification of the energy matrix to more areas of Mexico that would increase energy security, national and regional sustainable energy, in addition to improving air quality and reducing polluting emissions, as well as the electrification of the transportation sector. and reduction of congestion in the transmission of electricity.

The US Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, said that the country currently governed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador could become a major exporter of clean energy for the United States and Canada.

“As a result, Mexico’s renewable energy could generate high levels of investment,” the official wrote in the framework of the North American Leaders Summit based in Mexico City.

The Government of Mexico presented statistics in 2021 in which it detailed that it will not reach the 2024 goal established in the Energy Transition Law, but a year later it only mentioned that it will reach it without presenting the corresponding figures.

Rocío Nahle García, head of Mexico’s Energy Secretariat, has said that the government brought “order” to Mexico’s electricity sector by canceling clean energy auctions and trying to reduce the participation of private companies in the electricity generation sector, through administrative changes and a reform of secondary legislation.

The US Government began in July 2022 consultations with the Mexican Government on its energy policy for alleged violations of the T-MEC commitments.

The axes of the consultations are the reform of the Electricity Industry Law; inaction, delays, denials and revocations of energy permits; extensions only for Pemex and actions on the transportation of natural gas.

In the middle of the process, the Ministry of Economy faced the resignation of its then head, Tatiana Clouthier in October, who said that Nahle “does not want to give up anything” on the consultations, during a conversation with the newspaper La Jornada.

Although the axes of the Summit are migration, climate change, competitiveness in the region, security and the fight against drug trafficking, the spokesperson for the State Department, Kristina Rosales, said in an interview with Bloomberg Línea that the disagreements on energy matters will continue once that the meetings between Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau and López Obrador conclude.

With information from Bloomberg