Financial performance analysis of the geothermal power station of Los Humeros, Mexico

Abstract

This work presents the analysis of the financial performance of the Los Humeros geothermal power station. Currently, the power station has 96 MW of installed capacity with 68 MW under operation. The study was performed using two scenarios. The first scenario took the current business scheme, the so-called Vesting contract and the second scenario simulated the participation of the power station in the Mexican regulated market. The operational and invested amount were obtained from actual contracts from the owner company. The results showed that the investment is amortized in 6 years for the vesting contract and in 4 years for the regulated market. The Net Present Value was evaluated with three different interest rates. It showed positive values for the current vesting contract, and negative values for almost all the combinations of the open regulated market during the first 5 of the 25 years of the project's lifetime. Calculations considering the whole lifetime show high chances of profitability of the project in both cases.