Dino Barajas Writes for Power Finance & Risk on Mexico as a Renewable Energy Investment “Lightning Rod”

Akin Gump global project and finance partner Dino Barajas’s article “Mexico: Latin America’s Renewable Energy Renaissance” has been published by Power Finance & Risk.

The article discusses the rise of Mexico as a “lightning rod” for renewable energy investment spurred by what he terms “unpredictable renewable energy policies in the U.S. and the European Union” and Mexican investment-grade credit that “provides potential investors one of the few high-grade investment environments in Latin America.”

Barajas outlines several factors that have laid the groundwork for the country’s receptiveness to renewable energy investment, including President Peña Nieto’s favorable energy policies and Mexican federal government efforts to further modernize the country’s power sector, the country’s “sweeping reforms to the entire electricity sector” in 2014 and the new market structure that followed, and readily available financing from sources such as the Inter-American Development Bank and the Overseas Private Insurance Corp., which “are working in the Mexican market with creative financing structures.”

He concludes by noting that the “Mexican energy market is poised to attract the majority of new renewable energy investment in the Americas if Mexican policymakers continue to view renewable energy as a critical part of the country’s overall power generation portfolio and enact policies to promote increased wind, solar and geothermal development.”

Akin Gump has been ranked among the top firms working in projects and energy in Latin America by Legal 500 (read more here) and Latinvex (read more here), and Barajas’ work in the region singled out by Chambers Latin America 2015 and The Legal 500 Latin America 2014.