Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the Electricity Industry Law declared constitutional by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) will allow the Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) to start operating its generating plants.
As Hydro Review reported in July 2021, Mexico’s government backed CFE’s generation through an overhaul of the electricity law that would alter economic dispatch priority to bump up the company’s hydroelectric and thermal units to ensure they can generate before privately owned assets. The law was suspended by federal courts pending a series of appeals. The resident said his administration would pursue constitutional changes that would benefit CFE and increase transmission rates in the national system.
According to BNamericas, he explained that 70% of the company’s 200 generating plants were prevented from operating by the energy reform approved during the administration of former President Enrique Peña Nieto. He gave as an example the case of three hydroelectric plants that were built in the state of Nayarit and were underutilized, to exhibit the contradiction of his opponents who built these electricity generating plants at the same time that they privatized the energy service.
“Imagine how much they cost; furthermore, what a perversity, to build three large works at the same time that the privatization of the electricity industry is on the agenda. Then, why did they build the hydroelectric plants? Well, they did them to steal the money in the construction of the works, although it seems incredible,” he said.
In a conference, the president said that in the SCJN resolution endorsing the constitutionality of the reform to the electricity law, the 11 ministers voted in favor of a transitory article that declares the self-supply illegal. He said self-supply is only allowed if it is a company that is using the energy it produces, such as a steel mill or a mining company.
López Obrador also pointed out that through the mechanism of self-supply companies, abuses were committed and gave as an example the case of a thermoelectric plant in Tampico, Tamaulipas, that was exporting electricity to Guatemala. “And it pays nothing for transmission because with money from the people, from the budget, everything that means the transfer of energy from one place to another was subsidized. So, all that is over,” said the President.
Previously, López Obrador said that the SCJN’s resolution will allow CFE’s 60 hydroelectric plants to increase their energy production by more than 50%.
CFE’s hydroelectric production comes from 166 generating units with a total effective capacity of 12,125 MW (around 12% of the total generation in Mexico). With the modernization process that has been carried out since last year, it would reach 12,428 MW.
