Sun for the South. Alleviating Energy Poverty in Southern Mexico

The Southern states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, Tabasco, Veracruz, Guerrero and Puebla have historically concentrated most of the poorest and most marginalized households in Mexico. In addition, this region presents the lowest levels of energy access. Almost 48% of rural communities without electricity access are located within these six states totalling 116,297 persons. Moreover, at least 32% of the households located in those states do not have access to clean cooking fuels or technologies and use locally collected firewood that puts safety and health at risk. Nevertheless, from 2016 to 2021 those states have installed more than 20 thousand distributed generation centrals representing 7% of the national total and 165 MWp of solar capacity. The present administration is committed to the expansion of distributed generation suggesting an impulse over the next years to alleviate energy poverty in Mexico’s south, increasing electricity access in isolated communities and improving cooking conditions through solar power.