Iberdrola is on track to sell its remaining plants in Mexico: report

Iberdrola has hired Barclays to sell its remaining 15 plants with 2,600 megawatts installed in Mexico, the Spanish news website El Confidencial reported Wednesday, citing anonymous sources.

The Spanish company's revenue in the country fell 43% between 2023 and 2024, following the sale of assets that concluded last year. Although its management maintained its ignorance of the new divestment, it stated in its most recent annual report that there is regulatory uncertainty.

The plants Iberdrola is planning to sell, which before its latest sale to the Mexican government would still represent the remaining 45%, are valued at €4 billion ($4.7 billion), El Confidencial reported, adding that there are concerns about the country's legal and fiscal stability.

"The Group faces a risk in Mexico due to the delay in the procedures required to register customers in the new market scheme," Iberdrola published in its 2024 report, "Regulatory Uncertainty in the Mexican Electricity Market," adding that "this delay is preventing Iberdrola from supplying these customers, so the energy must be sold on the spot market."

Iberdrola CEO Ignacio Sánchez Galán said during the presentation of its second-quarter 2025 results on Wednesday, July 23, that he "had no idea" and "didn't comment on rumors." Iberdrola Mexico had not responded by press time.

Between 2023 and 2024, Iberdrola's revenue from Mexico fell by 43%, reaching €1.721 billion, a reduction that is even more striking when compared to its 2022 revenue of €4.079 billion.

Thus, according to sources who spoke to El Confidencial, Iberdrola has initiated a process with the help of Baker McKenzie and its Director of Corporate Development, David Mesonero, to divest itself of the approximately 2,600 megawatts it has left in the country. The National Electric System has just over 90,000 megawatts installed, so with 11,139 megawatts, Iberdrola was the company with the largest installed capacity until the beginning of last year.

The Spanish company has already received offers for its six wind farms, three photovoltaic plants, and six cogeneration and combined-cycle plants located in 12 states across the country: Coahuila, Nuevo León, Querétaro, Tamaulipas, Puebla, Guanajuato, Sonora, and San Luis Potosí, according to reports.

Disagreements with the government

In February 2024, the Mexican government completed its purchase of 13 Iberdrola power plants in Mexico through the Mexico Infrastructure Partners trust, a transaction valued at €5.8 billion. This divestment process began in April 2023 following statements by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador discrediting private electricity-producing companies in Mexico.

The Mexican government then began, during Holy Week, the acquisition, which it described as "a new nationalization," totaling 8,539 megawatts.

Previously, the now-defunct Mexican Energy Regulatory Commission approved an economic sanction of 9.145 billion pesos (about 490 million dollars) in early 2022 to Iberdrola Energía Monterrey (IEM), a subsidiary of the Spanish electricity company, for the sale of electricity produced under the self-supply scheme that remained as a legacy after the 2014 reform in which no more permits of this type would be signed so that new capacity would be invested in auctions or in a wholesale market.

In July 2022, the Third District Court Specialized in Economic Competition, Broadcasting, and Telecommunications ordered the Energy Regulatory Commission to provisionally suspend the sanction, granting a precautionary measure after the injunction. The lawsuit involved the sale of energy from the Dulces Nombres power plant in Pesquería, Nuevo León, to more than 400 project partner companies, including Oxxo, Femsa, Kimberly Clark, and Cemex. (With information from Octavio Amador.)