A Guadalajara company that installs solar panels has completed a system—the largest in the state of Jalisco and the second largest rooftop array in Mexico—at a Hewlett-Packard manufacturing plant here.
E2 Energías finished installing the 3,400-panel, 0.86-megawatt system in early February, said Guillermo Corona Jazo, a co-founder of the company. The panels will cover 30 percent of the plant’s energy usage, or roughly enough power for 1,000 average Mexican households, Corona Jazo said.
HP chose the company, the only one that sells Sharp solar panels in Mexico’s western markets, in a competitive process that included more than 10 other installers.The solar industry in the sunny state of Jalisco has seen rapid growth in recent years. E2 Energías was started by four people and quickly grew to 45 employees. Corona Jazo said the company has been expanding every year, and there’s often a boom in December when businesses decide to install a solar system in time to receive a tax deduction.
While most of the company’s individual clients are residential, the bulk of the panels installed go onto industrial projects because their arrays are so much larger than those put on houses. Still, the company has seen growth in both its business and homeowner customers.
Recently solar panels have been becoming a more viable option for those looking to save money and reduce their impact on the environment.
“The main issue is the drop in prices of the panels and the increasing prices of the electricity rates,” Corona Jazo said. People have also increasingly shown more trust in the technology, he added.
The Mexican government has also demonstrated its commitment to a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty that set requirements for industrialized countries to reduce carbon emissions.
As a developing economy, Mexico’s obligations to the treaty, which was in effect through 2012, were not binding. Even so, Corona Jazo said the government is still looking to lower greenhouse gas emissions and, as such, companies are looking to do so also.
For that reason, many business owners who face having to pay higher taxes for releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere have begun looking at solar panels as an option. Corona Jazo said it takes about four years to earn back the initial investment for installing the panels and those sold by E2 Energías have a 25-year guarantee.