Madrid, February 22, 2012 — The Mexican unit of Spanish energy company Acciona has started operations at its 102 MW Oaxaca II plant in Mexico's Tehuantepec isthmus. The plants required total investment of some $690 million.

CFE connected Acciona's Oaxaca II plant to Mexico's grid on February 6, and confirmed its operations on February 15. Acciona's 102MW Oaxaca III plant started operations at the end of January, and its Oaxaca IV plant is set to start up on March 5.

Oaxaca II brings private sector wind power capacity in the country to 995 MW, and total wind capacity to 1.08 GW.

Acciona built the three plants under the independent power producer model and used 1.5 MW Acciona wind turbines.

In March 2010, CFE awarded the three projects to Acciona, and will purchase energy generated under a power purchase agreement. Acciona submitted offers to CFE in a range between $0.065/kWh and $0.070/kWh for the first year of operation, and the prices are indexed for the contract's 20-year duration.

Acciona currently has the most installed wind capacity of any company in Mexico, including the 251 MW Eurus plant in Oaxaca state, which is the largest wind farm in Latin America. Acciona built it under the self-supply model to provide energy to cement producer Cemex.

Mexico has the second most operational wind capacity in Latin America behind Brazil, which has some 1.6 GW.