CFE attacks private renewable energy generators in Congress

The general director of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), Manuel Bartlett, reiterated that the electricity generation cap to which the private sector will have access will be 46 percent.

The general director of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), Manuel Bartlett, assured that while the state electricity company has stopped receiving about 8,000 million pesos in not charging the domestic high consumption rate to 6.4 million customers who have exceeded their use of basic energy during the Covid-19 pandemic, private generators with almost half of the electricity production in the country have maintained their income in many cases excessive by not paying the full transmission porting and the state obligation to grant them the support for its intermittency, for which the legal changes will continue to strengthen the CFE that guarantees the continuity of electrification of the country, above private interests even if they are renewable.  

Particularly about the Spanish company Iberdrola, Bartlett explained that it has increased its income so far this year because it maintains a series of “leonine” contracts signed with the Mexican State in the two previous administrations, which in addition to having the porting fees lower legacy self-supply contracts, it also maintains self-supply companies in which it resells energy to partners, in a high-level black market, together with the CFE’s obligation to buy from them for everything that was taken out of the infrastructure operation with an active life of 30 years of the CFE, in a kind of double rate.   

Therefore, the Spanish company and the CFE canceled a generation contract at the Tuxpan, Veracruz combined cycle plant, where Iberdrola conditioned its investment in exchange for natural gas provided by the CFE at the previously agreed price, which was not competitive for the current Mexican government.  

“It is not that we are against abusive foreign investments, which were placed in the most profitable nodes and do not pay the cost of transmission because they have the privileges of the previous regulation, and they do not pay the support during their intermittence, what we do not accept is to be subsidizing that energy that big business does and does not pay a penny, “he said.

Secretary Pedro Joaquín Coldwell said in the previous six-year term, that these companies that do not have fuel costs for using solar or wind power, but they are more expensive energy because of the components that are brought from abroad for their operation and because of the subsidies that are granted ”.  

For this reason, the CFE general director reiterated that the electricity generation cap to which the private sector will access will be 46% and although the government will be respectful of the judicial decisions for the protection of private companies against the Reliability Policy that it has proposed the government will be willing to make the necessary constitutional changes to guarantee the continuity of electrification in the country.  

“If foreign interests take over electricity generation, we will return to the dependence of the 1930s when these companies invest when it is convenient only because it is their business and the State cannot leave the country without electricity, “he said.