Last week, President López Obrador welcomed Canadian business leaders from power companies established in our country to listen and discuss them. This is due to some disagreements they presented regarding Mexico’s electricity policy.
The Mexican President expressed that the non-conformities of the four Canadian companies in matters of energy are due to a dispute related to an electricity self-supply permit and a power generation plant. He said that a company in that country was not careful when connecting with other Mexican firms through the figure of electric self-supply. Caisse de dépôt et placement du Quebec, a long-term investment fund that, together with a group of Mexican investors, acquired 80 percent of a portfolio of eight wind and solar projects from Italian power company Enel, he insisted. ,
It should be remembered that the electricity self-supply figure comes from the neoliberal reform to the Electricity Public Service Act in 1992 to allow individuals to self-generate electricity. Furthermore, it evaded a constitutional provision of the time which granted the nation exclusivity in the generation of electricity for the purpose of providing a public service. The foregoing meant that self-supply was excluded from the concept of public service; However, this self-production of electricity has resulted in fraud against the law, for example, a foreign electricity generator pretending to be one-dollar partners who are actually its customers.
According to the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), this creates private monopolies that are not regulated or supervised, and that also operate outside a market scheme, in that they do not compete with other electricity companies or due to access. do not pay. of the National Transmission Network (RNT), which itself is the property and responsibility of the CFE. This, in stark contrast to the payments made by millions of Mexican men and women, who must strictly cover their consumption.
In line with the plan described above and also as per the information received from CFE, large industrial consumers of the country have been recruited. Currently, there are 110 fraudulent companies that sell electricity to over 70,000 undisclosed partners (cement companies, mining companies, telecommunications companies, pharmacies, breweries, supermarkets), all in violation of the law.
What is sought with the recent reforms in the Electric Industry Law, which was validated by the nation’s Supreme Court last April, is to bring order to the electricity market, in addition to not increasing the price of electricity above inflation. There is true competition in production. Also ensure that the State fulfills its responsibility to plan and control the National Electricity System (SEN) as well as the transmission and distribution service of electrical energy by virtue of Article 27 of the Constitution.
Thus, for example, the reforms establish that, in granting electricity generation permits, the Energy Regulatory Commission must consider the planning criteria of the Ministry of Energy, to take care of the balance between the supply and demand of electricity. transits through the RNT, and that the SEN does not collapse due to oversupply of electricity due to indiscriminate granting of permits based on strict economic criteria.
President López Obrador reported the following after the meeting: “We were attended by four Canadian companies. And we solved all four problems without a hitch.
A willingness to negotiate allowed understanding and reconciliation between the Government of Mexico and Canadian companies to collaboratively resolve disputes in matters of electricity.
