Yansa-Ixtepec community wind farm
Initiative to build an indigenous-owned community wind farm (~100 MW) on communal lands of Ciudad Ixtepec (Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca).
illustrative atlas image · Tom Fisk / Pexels01 The context
The model, driven by the Zapotec commune and Grupo Yansa, avoided land leasing and earmarked part of the profits for a community trust. It was never built: in October 2012 the CFE closed the door on the project and awarded the last transmission capacity (~102 MW) to Enel Green Power; the commune filed an amparo lawsuit against the CFE.
02 How it works
03 What it stands on
The evidence 2 ›
04 Lessons learned
The legal-financial design (a UK Community Interest Company) did not fit the Mexican regulatory framework, which gave the CFE grounds to dismiss the project in 2012, and the tender rules favored large firms. An energy social innovation needs a viable legal form in the host country and an interconnection framework that does not depend on the goodwill of the state monopoly. Added lesson: the model depended heavily on a founding figure (Sergio Oceransky) who was later the subject of serious public allegations, which shows the governance risk of personalistic vehicles.