Mexico and Chile installed almost the same solar capacity. Chile is living off it.

Installed capacity is close to a tie: Mexico has approximately 12 gigawatts of solar, Chile close behind at a similar figure despite a much smaller economy and grid. If the story were about panels in the ground, this would be a wash.

The story is not about panels in the ground. Solar supplied 22.3% of Chile's electricity in 2024, and 20.9% of Spain's, a country at a broadly comparable latitude and grid size to Mexico. Mexico's solar share was 7.6% over the same period.

The gap sits downstream of the panels. Chile built transmission capacity to move power out of its solar-heavy Atacama region and into demand centres, and added storage to smooth output. Mexico's grid, run by the state utility CFE, has been slower to expand the lines and storage that let installed capacity actually reach consumption.

Same sun, similar hardware, different grid. The binding constraint on Mexico's solar transition looks less like a resource problem and more like an infrastructure one.