Until now, the National Center for Energy Control (Cenace) prioritizes nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal energy and gas, in that order, which takes as a basis the variable costs in its generation and takes in the first place which it considers cheaper. But the federal administration has complained in recent years that this has left CFE’s facilities unused, affecting its finances.
If approved without changes, the reform also establishes that Cenace will return to the ranks of the Ministry of Energy – as it was until a few years ago – and that will make it easier for the company led by Manuel Bartlett to give priority to energy than the state produces, regardless of the generation method.
The state company has 191 plants, which currently, Nahle assured, operate at 55% of their capacity due to the model that was implemented after the 2013 reform. “With this, the CFE will control the dispatch of electricity and will be able to sell its electricity produced and obtain higher income (…) This new office will guarantee us better operability and flexibility in the system, and it also helps us with electricity rates, “he said at the National Palace conference.
This is not the first time that the federal government has tried to change this order. In the reliability policy published in May 2019 – and which was later discarded after court rulings in favor of the private sector and the Federal Competition Commission – the Ministry of Energy already sought to prioritize the use of the national power plants.
The federal government has sought to increase the use of fuel oil, which is characterized by a high polluting power, in order to achieve synergies between state-owned CFE and Pemex. The oil company has increased the production of this by-product of refining in recent years, derived from the increase in the use of refineries in the search to increase the consumption of refined gasoline in the country. Pemex accumulates 15 months with a fuel oil production above the amount of gasoline that comes out of its refineries.
But despite the attempt to change the order in the dispatch, renewable energy, mainly solar, has added growth in recent months and has taken market share from other fuels such as coal. During 2020, the electricity produced in solar plants showed an annual increase of 61% and that of wind 18%.