Mexico targets US energy exports from solar farms and chip supply chain role

The governor of Sonora, a state in northern Mexico, stated that his state wants to participate in the chip supply chain and export clean energy to California and Arizona from a sizable new solar farm project. This is in light of TSMC’s (2330.TW) $40 billion investment in Arizona.

As part of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s flagship solar push, the first phase of the Puerto Penasco solar plant in the vast border state, which has some of the country’s highest temperatures, was inaugurated in February. According to officials, the project could eventually include four additional plants.

Alfonso Durazo, the governor of Sonora, claimed during a trip to Taiwan that the “Plan Sonora” solar energy project will help increase both domestic connectivity to the national grid and export to the United States.

California is included, in addition to Arizona. It is a component of its goal, he told Reuters on Monday. In particular for the semiconductor and electric vehicle industries, “We want to make our state an exporter of clean energy.”

While in Taipei, Durazo claimed he would meet with Foxconn (2317.TW), a significant Apple (AAPL.O) supplier, to discuss potential investments in his state. He did not, however, intend to meet with TSMC.

Foxconn has significant operations in Mexico but no facilities in Sonora despite having made electric vehicles a key component of its future development strategy.

Durazo, who is just in Taiwan for this overseas trip, continued, “Our interest in Foxconn is in constructing semiconductor facilities, and also, eventually, factories of some or all the stages of e-mobility.

Durazo stated that he was going to the Hsinchu Science Park, where the chipmaker does most of its manufacturing in Taiwan, and that he would want to see a TSMC chip plant built in his state.

We also consider TSMC as an obvious alternative for Sonora state, assuming as a natural complement of all these processes of movement of investment in Arizona, he added.

Both TSMC and Foxconn declined to comment.

Major lithium reserves are also present in Sonora, which Lopez Obrador officially nationalised in Mexico earlier this year.

The metal, which is an essential element for EV batteries, has not yet started being produced in Mexico.

Durazo emphasised that private investors would be permitted to collaborate with the emerging national lithium business LitioMx in order to facilitate production, provided that they developed supply networks in Sonora.