California and Sonora, Mexico Sign Clean Energy MOU
California and the Mexican state of Sonora signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for collaboration on clean energy development. The MOU also outlines trade-related objectives of increasing supply chain resilience and expanding regional access to renewable energy. The parties signed the memorandum on March 17, 2025 after Governor Gavin Newsom met in Sacramento with a delegation from Sonora that included Sonora Governor Alfonso Durazo Montaño. The parties have been working on the agreement since 2023.
Renewable Energy Initiatives
The MOU outlined the common objectives of increasing development of renewable electricity, maintaining electric system reliability and expanding regional access to renewables, increasing energy efficiency in buildings, increasing resiliency of supply chain for clean energy components, and supporting research and development in clean energy and “electric mobility.”
The parties will pursue this collaboration through initiatives focused on renewables, energy efficiency, electric system reliability and markets, electric mobility, clean and renewable hydrogen, supply chain development, and support for research and development.
Renewable Energy Trade and Supply Chain Initiatives
More specific to trade, the memorandum also called for meetings between California Energy Commission subject matter experts and Sonora officials, as well as meetings with the California Independent System Operator and other entities that can “aid the State of Sonora in exploring exporting renewable energy into the United States.”
The MOU also called for meetings between California economics officials and their counterparts from Sonora “on supply chain development” and the promotion of a “binational research center for electric mobility.”
California Diplomacy
Newsom touted the meeting as a contrast to the increasing trade tensions between Mexico and the United States. “The conversation we just had illuminated that contrast, the relationship to Sonora, the relationship to California, our relationship to this moment, and our relationship to the moments that are being advanced in Washington, D.C.,” he said.
David Hochschild, Chair of the California Energy Commission, and Dr. Francisco Acuna Mendez, Executive President of the Council of the Sustainable Development of Sonora signed the MOU.