Geothermal resources in Mexico are
used mostly to produce electrical energy. Direct
uses of geothermal are practically restricted to
bathing and swimming pools. Up to present (2000),
the geothermal electric capacity is 755 megawatts
(MW), which is installed in the Mexican geothermal
fields of Cerro Prieto (620 MW), Los Azufres (93
MW) and Los Humeros (42 MW). The reconnaissance
and inventory of thermal areas in Mexico was finished
in 1987. As a result, 545 thermal localities were
identified, grouping around 1,380 hot spots, including
springs, shallow wells, fumaroles, steaming grounds,
etc.
The annual geothermal production in
Mexico (1999) is around 56 million metric tons of
steam, at an annual average rate of 6,400 tons per
hour. This amount of steam is produced by an average
of 164 geothermal wells, whose depths vary from
600 to 3,500 meters. Humeros field.
They generated 5,619 gigawatts-hour (GWh) in 1999,
with an annual average capacity factor of 86% and
a specific consumption of 10 tons per megawatt-hour.
Geothermal electricity generation represented 3.2%
of the total electric energy produced in Mexico
in 1999.
