For more than 20 years, Invenergy has been responsibly developing, building, owning, and operating wind, solar, and natural gas generation projects and energy storage projects. In fact, we’ve developed more than 200 projects and 32 gigawatts of generating capacity across three major continents including the Americas. Our mission to accelerate cleaner, more reliable, affordable energy has never been clearer, and we believe our decade of work in Mexico has been a catalyst of Invenergy’s growing leadership, innovation, and expertise in the global clean energy transition.
But this didn’t happen overnight. It takes time to develop a team that has end-to-end clean energy expertise from development through operations — and Denéb Rivera, office manager at Invenergy’s Mexico City office, has witnessed the growth firsthand.
“I remember moving into the current Mexico City office in 2017, and the office furniture shipment didn’t arrive on time, so all we had ready for employees was a conference table in the middle of a large office,” Rivera says. “We took a team photo during those first few days. At that time, there were only 19 of us. I keep that photo and look at it to remind me how far we’ve come.”
Now, Invenergy employs 46 full-time operations and maintenance staff and 43 employees in our Mexico City regional office, in addition to the construction jobs our clean energy sites generate as we continue developing new projects. Invenergy has successfully developed nearly 900 megawatts of clean energy across six projects to date, enough to power nearly 1 million Mexican homes, with at least 10 more projects actively being pursued for development. Invenergy is the most diversified privately held power producer in Mexico with a multi-technology portfolio of clean energy projects in operation, including wind turbines, solar photovoltaic, energy storage technologies, gas turbines, high-efficiency reciprocating engines and steam boilers.
A local workforce with global expertise
Since the opening of the Mexico City office, Invenergy’s presence in Mexico has grown exponentially, and our in-country team of experts can address the energy goals of industrial, commercial, and utility customers not only in Mexico, but around the world. Many people from Invenergy’s Mexico teams have lent their expertise to projects globally, including in El Salvador, Brazil, Uruguay, the United States and Canada.
“Those of us who work in the Invenergy office in Mexico are flexible, experienced, bilingual and have previous experience in other countries, which allows us to understand other cultures, strategies and needs in international markets,” says Miguel Catena, Invenergy’s vice president of thermal operations in Mexico. “By combining these resources with other international offices, projects have a much greater chance of being successful.”
Miguel Castro is one of Invenergy’s senior project managers of engineering and construction in Mexico who has worked on clean energy projects internationally, helping sites in the U.S. and Canada reach commercial operation. Castro has honed his expertise over the past 10 years working in Mexico on matters related to project financing, plant configuration and design, contract negotiations, environmental and local permitting, and interconnection. Now, Castro is preparing to take those skills to the United States to work on Invenergy’s natural gas portfolio there and continue contributing to Invenergy’s mission to deliver cleaner, more reliable, affordable energy.
“The skills I developed while working in Mexico have been important in preparing me for projects in the United States,” Castro says. “My experience in managing the development and engineering on thermal projects in Mexico and collaborating with diverse teams have equipped me with a solid foundation for tackling projects in the United States and elsewhere.”
A flexible approach to unleashing clean energy
Whether it’s helping Mexico achieve its climate goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 35% by 2030 or assisting industrial customers in reaching their energy objectives, Invenergy’s teams provide flexible contractual and ownership arrangements and expertise in a broad array of clean energy technologies to meet the needs of project stakeholders.
“Our ability to adapt and present creative structures to suit our customers’ needs gives us an advantage over our competition,” says Gabriel Monroy, Invenergy’s senior vice president of international finance and Mexico country manager. “Many of the projects we have been awarded, and even projects currently in our pipeline, are the result of innovative ideas not originally considered by our clients but where we have tirelessly worked to understand the clients’ needs and our ability to be flexible and creative when presenting solutions.”
Invenergy’s La Toba Energy Center is an example of this creativity and flexibility, Monroy says. Achieving commercial operation in 2022, La Toba co-locates solar and energy storage to help bring renewable and reliable energy to Baja California Sur, an area of Mexico that has historically relied on fossil fuels for electricity.
“Invenergy pursued a unique structure in La Toba, a project that sells 100% of its capacity and electricity to the wholesale market,” Monroy says. “Invenergy used its knowledge of the market dynamics of the Baja California Sur grid as well as solar and energy storage technologies to demonstrate our ability to deliver clean energy.’”
The clean energy transition in Mexico and abroad has made great progress, and there is still a lot of work to do. From nearshoring supply chains to increasing the buildout of clean energy, it will take continued public-private collaboration to meet the scale of increasing clean energy demand, and Invenergy is proud to be on the forefront of this mission. Invenergy’s presence in Mexico has accelerated the energy transition and will support the needs of the market for decades to come.