CNE Approves Mexico Solar Permits Worth US$750M for 649MW

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes · Last updated: 11 November 2026

Six Mexico solar permits carrying a combined US$750 million in private investment have been approved by the CNE under the Privados II call for proposals. Together the plants are designed to deliver 649MW of net capacity to the National Power System (SEN), with 751MWac installed and an expected 1,881GWh of output a year. Every project must include battery storage, and all six are scheduled to reach commercial operation in 2028 and 2029. Three developers share the awards: Green Park Energy, Ammper Generación and Viva El Sol. The approvals come as nearshoring lifts industrial electricity demand across Mexico. Building the plants now looks like the easier half of the job, because the transmission network that has to carry their output is already under strain.

What 649MW of Net Capacity Adds to Mexico's Grid

The headline figure is 649MW of net capacity, the amount the six plants are meant to feed into the SEN. Installed alternating current capacity is higher, at 751MWac. That leaves a gap of roughly 102MW between what will be built and what counts as net, and the reason for the difference was not set out with the approval.

Expected annual generation is 1,881GWh. Capacity factor is the share of its theoretical maximum output a plant actually produces over a year. Measured against the 751MWac installed base, these projects would run at a capacity factor of about 29 percent.

The investment works out to roughly US$1.16 million per MW of net capacity, or about US$125 million per permit on average. Those are blended figures, because the US$750 million was not broken down project by project. None of this electricity is expected on the grid before 2028, and part of it is scheduled for 2029.

Which Developers Won and Where They Will Build

Green Park Energy, a subsidiary of Cox, took three of the six permits. Its sites are in Aguascalientes, Jalisco and Guanajuato, so half of the round went to a single company.

Ammper Generación, part of Invex Controladora, won two permits. The one identified by name is the Antares project in Tlaxcala, and the location of Ammper's second site was not specified. Viva El Sol received the remaining permit, for a project in Coahuila.

The split of the 649MW between the three developers was not published alongside the permits. A count of permits therefore says nothing about which company will own the most generation. That breakdown matters for anyone tracking how concentrated private solar ownership is becoming under the new rules, and it is the first detail worth requesting from the companies or the regulator.

Why Only Six of 57 Proposals Made It Through

Privados II is the second call for proposals through which private developers compete for generation permits. It drew 57 submissions. Thirty-one of those qualified, and six passed every compliance and technical requirement. That is about 11 percent of all bids and about 19 percent of the qualified ones.

The arithmetic shows that money was not what held most applicants back. Twenty-five qualified proposals were still turned away. The binding filter was the technical and compliance test, and the focus now shifts to whether the six winners can build on time.

The round sits inside a wider federal plan. That plan directs more than two-thirds of energy-related investment allocations through 2030 toward generation, from both the state and private developers. Privados II is one channel for the private share, and six permits with 649MW of net capacity is its latest output.

Storage Is a Condition of the Permits, Not an Option

Each project must include a battery energy storage system (BESS), meaning banks of batteries that charge when output is high and discharge when it falls. Across the six sites the systems total 204MW of power and about 628MWh of energy.

Dividing energy by power gives a discharge duration of roughly three hours at full output. The battery fleet's power rating equals about 31 percent of the plants' net capacity. The aim is to smooth solar output, which drops with cloud cover and disappears after sunset, and to make the new supply more dependable for industrial users.

Most of the new capacity is concentrated in two regions. The Western Region takes 350MW and the Eastern Region 289MW. The Northeastern Region receives just 10MW, which adds up to the 649MW total.

Transmission Is the Harder Problem

New generation does little if the wires cannot carry it. Industrial hubs drawing heavy nearshoring investment are already testing substations and transmission lines. These 649MW will have to be matched with CFE's grid investment and modernisation plans if the power is to reach factories.

For companies weighing a Mexican site, the reliability of supply has become a deciding factor. Manufacturing losses during major outages have shown what an unreliable grid costs. A permit approved in 2026 for a plant energised in 2028 or 2029 is a promise of capacity, not a guarantee of delivery to a specific industrial park.

Privados II shows that private capital is available for Mexican solar. Whether the grid can absorb what that capital builds depends on work the CFE controls, not the developers.

What could help or hold back the six projects

The bottom line

The CNE's Privados II approvals put US$750 million of private money behind six solar plants. They promise 649MW of net capacity, 1,881GWh a year and 204MW of mandatory battery storage, starting in 2028. The round was demanding: six winners from 57 proposals, with 25 qualified bids left out. That suggests the regulator is choosing carefully rather than struggling to attract capital. The open questions are the ones the announcement left unanswered: how the capacity splits between Green Park Energy, Ammper Generación and Viva El Sol, and whether CFE's grid work keeps pace. A permit counts for little without a transmission line able to carry the power, and in Mexico's nearshoring hubs those lines are already stretched.

What to watch

• Watch for the first of the six plants to reach commercial operation, scheduled for 2028.
• Watch for the remaining projects to enter service in 2029, the latest date set for the round.
• Watch for CFE transmission and substation work in the Western and Eastern regions, which take most of the new capacity; no completion dates have been set.