Acciona Energía has started constructing a 404MW solar project in the Mexican state of Sonora, which has been developed in a 50:50 joint venture with Tuto Energy.

The Puerto Libertad photovoltaic complex will start supplying power to the grid in late 2018 and the whole plant will be operational in early 2019.

Of the total capacity of the photovoltaic plant, 229MW will be used to supply energy to the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), following the award made in the second long-term energy auction held in September 2016.

Another 114MW comes under a private energy purchase and sale contract between the consortium that owns the project and the company Tuto Energy Trading. The power from this capacity will be sent to the installations of a major Mexican industrial group.

Energy produced by the remaining 61MW will be sold on the wholesale electricity market.

Puerto Libertad is located near the Mar de Cortés coast in the Gulf of Baja California, around 200 kilometres north-west of Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora.

The facility will be equipped with 1,222,800 polycrystalline silicon panels mounted on horizontal tracker systems. It will produce around 963GWh of power per year, sufficient to cover the electricity demand of 583,000 Mexican homes.

Acciona Energía will carry out the turnkey construction of the Mexico plant as the EPC provider. It will also undertake its operation and maintenance (O&M) for two years, after which time this function will be taken over by a joint venture set up by the two partners in the project.