Mexico's I-REC market in 2023: 9th largest issuer worldwide

Following the deadline set by The Green Certificate Company, vintage 2023 I-REC issuance is now closed. We are starting our series of market statistics with our home country: Mexico.

Among the top global issuers

As a world manufacturing leader, with more and more companies adopting sustainability practices, Mexico ranks 9th in the world for I-REC issuance and 3rd in Latin America, after Brazil and Chile. Certificates in Mexico are mostly issued by NORMEX.

Significant but limited growth

I-RECs issued increased 25.2%, to 9,262,172 MWh, and 40 new devices were registered compared to 2022. However, 30 of those were small-scale distributed generation assets (0.5 MW or less), which contribute only 0.3% of the total I-RECs issued. Redemptions grew 29.5%, to 4,788,703 MWh.

The dominance of wind

The market is primarily driven by wind energy, with 76.3% of issuance, followed by solar (15.7%), hydro (3.8%), biomass (2.8%), geothermal (1.1%) and distributed solar (0.3%). Active installed capacity reached 4,121.2 MW, up 22.6%.

Local certificate competition

New renewable assets in Mexico can choose to produce I-RECs or the higher-priced Clean Energy Certificates (CELs), which are used for regulatory compliance. The preference for CELs limits the registration of new assets in the I-REC market.

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What it means for buyers

Mexico offers solid, wind-led supply for companies that want to report their Mexican operations as renewable. As participants and registrants with The International Tracking Standard Foundation, we help consumers worldwide achieve their renewable energy goals.