Ministry of Energy will stop the use of solar panels on roofs

Users who are installing a photovoltaic system will be affected. 

MEXICO CITY (Reforma Newspaper) – Users who are contemplating installing solar panels in their homes or small businesses, to generate their energy, will have to comply with new requirements, and their requests could even be rejected.

The new policy for the electrical system published by the Ministry of Energy (Sener) on May 15 calls for a higher number of procedures, and the interconnection will depend on the Energy Regulatory Commission determines in terms of network saturation by region.

This means that if in the regulator’s opinion, the project is located in a region considered saturated, the interconnection permit will not be granted, according to an analysis by the Mexican Energy Association (ASOLMEX).

The solar generation was intended to encourage the use and exploitation of solar energy in facilities that do not have a capacity higher than 0.5 megawatts, which until now did not require a permit from the Energy Regulatory Commission.

According to Asolmex, as of last March, investments in distributed generation systems exceeded 1.8 billion dollars, and 112,660 projects with a capacity of 818 megawatts had been installed.

However, under the new Sener reliability policy, any facility of this type must now submit an interconnection study since there is also a limit on the capacity of the electricity networks. These could be by region, zone, or system level, for which the National Energy Control Center (Cenace) will report to the Energy Regulatory Commission and then perhaps grant the permit.

“The limits on distributed generation will be more restrictive, prioritizing the reliability of the electricity grid, rather than efficiency, quality or sustainability. This would be contrary to Article 68 of the LIE provisions, which establishes that distributed generation with open and non-discriminatory access to the general distribution networks,” explains the Asolmex analysis.

Sener’s new policy establishes in the report that in addition to the studies and permits that the user must request, the installation must have intelligent inverters that allow for the regulation of frequency and voltage and the necessary equipment that allows for monitoring from the distribution centers and Cenace.