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Mexico: 5 energy policy briefs

The energy policies moving Mexico’s power markets, one brief each: the problem, the mechanism, the market effect, who gains and who pays, where it stands on the path to binding law, and the official text.

Binding planning · the Plan de Desarrollo del Sector Eléctrico each May and the CFE-led generation and transmission build to 2030

Mexico · Secretaría de Energía (Plan de Desarrollo del Sector Eléctrico and the disposiciones administrativas for binding planning) with CFE and CENACE · plan · 2025

Where it stands: Binding-planning framework in force since the reglamento of 3 October 2025; annual plan cycle and state-share calculation being operationalised

The 2025 framework replaced indicative PRODESEN planning with binding planning: SENER must publish a Plan de Desarrollo del Sector Eléctrico each May, though the first one came in October 2025, calculates the state's share of injected generation each February, and every permit, interconnection and mixed-investment project must conform to the plan, which is the instrument carrying the CFE-led generation and transmission expansion to 2030.

The problem

Between 2019 and 2024 Mexico added far less generation than demand growth required while nearshoring pushed industrial load up sharply in the Bajío and the north; reserve margins in the northwest and the peninsula fell below adequacy criteria, and CENACE repeatedly declared operating-state alerts. Transmission investment had been almost frozen since 2018, so the constraint was as much network as capacity: renewable-rich zones in Oaxaca, Sonora and Baja California could not export to load centres. The 2014 framework relied on private investment responding to market signals and to the PRODESEN as an indicative document, and after 2021 those signals no longer produced investment. The new constitutional order therefore required a planning instrument that actually binds.

What it does

The Ley del Sector Eléctrico and its reglamento of 3 October 2025 make planning vinculante and place it at the centre of the permitting system. Article 7 of the reglamento provides that sector planning is developed in the Plan de Desarrollo del Sector Eléctrico, which article 12 requires SENER to publish in May of each year, with the underlying programmes posted on the SENER, state company and CENACE portals and, where applicable, in the DOF within ten working days of authorisation. Article 9 requires SENER, by the last working day of February each year, to calculate the state's participation in generation under a methodology it issues, as state-injected generation divided by total injected generation times one hundred, and for forward-looking assessments to use estimated total injected generation built from national demand scenarios and estimated state generation that takes account of generation and transmission expansion plans, project progress and an adjustment factor for execution and commissioning-delay risk. On the basis of that result SENER must identify the additional generation, transmission and other electrical infrastructure the state needs to develop, include it in the plan and take the steps to execute it. Article 13 lets SENER designate Strategic Projects that receive administrative simplification and expedited processing. Both state and private projects, including the long-term production and mixed-investment schemes of the statute, are subject to the binding planning criteria, permits and authorisations are granted against compliance with the planning provisions SENER issues, and interested parties have twenty working days from publication of the plan to act on the opportunities it identifies.

Market effect

Binding planning reverses the direction of information in the Mexican market. Under the 2014 design a developer chose a site, requested an interconnection study and let CENACE's queue and the nodal price decide; under the 2025 design the state decides what is needed and where, publishes it on the statutory annual cycle, and the private route in is either a long-term production contract for a project the plan identifies or a mixed-investment vehicle in which CFE holds at least 54 percent. That makes the May publication and the February share calculation the two dates on which the entire Mexican pipeline turns, and it makes CFE's own capital programme the determinant of how much private capacity can be permitted at all: if CFE's projects slip, the execution-risk adjustment in article 9 pushes the state's estimated share down and the room for private permits narrows rather than widens. Transmission is where the plan matters most to prices, because congestion between the northwest, the Isthmus and the central load centres is what keeps locational marginal prices dispersed and renewable output curtailed; the strategic-project designation is the mechanism intended to accelerate those lines. For lenders the practical change is that the bankable document is no longer an interconnection study but a place in the plan.

Key numbers

Statutory publication month, and what actually happened
The reglamento has SENER publishing the Plan de Desarrollo del Sector Eléctrico in May each year. The first one did not follow that calendar: it was published in the DOF on 17 October 2025
Planning horizon
Fifteen years, 2025 to 2039
Starting point
90,543 MW of installed capacity in 2024, 36.9% of it clean; clean capacity had grown 132.5% since 2010 to reach 33,441 MW
Existing network
56,720 km of 161-400 kV transmission and 54,418 km at 69-138 kV, with 116,625 transformer banks
Electrification
99.73% of the population connected, 468,150 people still not; the 2025 programme covers 4,373 projects for 2,402 million pesos
State share calculation
By the last working day of February each year, as state-injected generation divided by total injected generation times 100
State floor
At least 54 percent of average injected energy in a calendar year
Response window
Twenty working days from publication of the plan for interested parties to act

Who gains and who pays

  • Comisión Federal de Electricidad (gains): Its capital programme becomes the backbone of the binding plan and the majority partner in mixed investment.
  • Private developers and infrastructure funds (mixed): A clear pipeline if they are in the plan, no route if they are not.
  • Industrial load centres in the Bajío and the north (costs): Dependent on planned transmission and capacity being delivered on time.
  • CENACE (obligation): Must align interconnection studies, programmes and market operation with the binding plan.
  • Renewable-rich states such as Oaxaca, Sonora and Baja California (gains): Planned transmission reinforcements are the condition for exporting their resource.

Implementation

SENER must first issue the methodology behind the February calculation and the disposiciones administrativas de carácter general for binding planning, then publish the plan each May and the associated programmes within ten working days of authorisation; CENACE aligns its programmes and interconnection processes to it, and the CNE grants permits against compliance with it. The state company's investment programme for generation and transmission to 2030, announced alongside the reform package and carried into the plan, is the concrete content of the framework. Because the plan is annual and the state-share calculation precedes it by three months, the sequencing is predictable and worth diarising. Delivery risk sits with CFE's execution capacity and with the financing of transmission, which competes with generation inside the same balance sheet.

Concerns

  • CFE's ability to finance and execute both generation and transmission on schedule
  • Private capacity rationed by an annual ratio rather than by system need
  • Transmission bottlenecks persisting between renewable zones and load centres
  • Reduced role for market signals and the interconnection queue in siting decisions
  • Transparency and contestability of the strategic-project designation

Dates to watch

  • 2027-02: SENER calculation of the state's share of injected generation
  • 2027-05: Publication of the next Plan de Desarrollo del Sector Eléctrico
  • 2030: Horizon of the current generation and transmission expansion programme

Sources

Checked against sources on .

Ley del Sector Eléctrico · the 54 percent state floor, the CNE replacing the CRE, and the reglamento of 3 October 2025

Mexico · Congreso de la Unión (Ley del Sector Eléctrico and Ley de la Comisión Nacional de Energía, DOF 18-03-2025) and the Executive (Reglamento, DOF 03-10-2025) · statute · 2025

Where it stands: In force since 19 March 2025 with its reglamento published 3 October 2025; market rules, migration guidelines and CNE administrative provisions still to be issued

Published on 18 March 2025 and in force the next day, the Ley del Sector Eléctrico abrogated the 2014 Ley de la Industria Eléctrica: the state must keep at least 54 percent of the energy injected into the grid in a calendar year, private generation continues under permits from the new Comisión Nacional de Energía, which replaces the autonomous CRE, and joint state-private projects run through two defined schemes; the reglamento followed on 3 October 2025.

The problem

The October 2024 constitutional amendment required that private participation in electricity never prevail over the state company, but it did not say what prevalence means, how it is measured, who grants permits after the autonomous regulator is dissolved, or what happens to the thousands of permits and contracts granted under the 1975 public-service law and the 2014 industry law. Without answers, no permit could be granted or renewed with confidence and no project could be financed. Congress had to write a complete replacement statute, and the Executive then had to write a reglamento detailed enough to make it operable.

What it does

The decree of 18 March 2025 enacted eight new statutes at once, including the Ley del Sector Eléctrico, which entered into force the following day and abrogated the Ley de la Industria Eléctrica of 11 August 2014. Article 4 fraction VI states the guarantee of non-prevalence of private parties over the state and requires the state to maintain at least 54 percent of the average energy injected into the grid in a calendar year, to be achieved within a wholesale market operating on economic load dispatch subject to reliability and security constraints. Generation may be carried out by the state, by private parties alone or jointly in mixed-investment schemes; it takes three forms, distributed generation, self-consumption and generation for the wholesale market, the latter two requiring a CNE permit, with plants of 0.7 MW or more needing a permit and smaller plants exempt. Chapter V creates two joint schemes: long-term production, in which the state contributes no capital, the entire output and associated products belong exclusively to the state company, CFE represents the plant in the market, asset transfer at the end of the contract is at the state company's option and free of charge, and the plant may not hold another permit, contract in another modality or sell surplus to third parties; and mixed investment, in which the state company must hold at least 54 percent directly or indirectly, may buy the output preferentially, and lets the plant sell what the state does not take through CFE as its market representative. Articles 143 to 146 keep clean-energy certificates, awarded independently of ownership and commercial-operation date, valid for 30 months, tradable, with SENER setting requirements in the first four months of each year for the following three years. The Ley de la Comisión Nacional de Energía created the CNE as a technical body sectorised to SENER with technical, operational, management and decision independence, replacing the CRE; the Supreme Court, in acción de inconstitucionalidad 51/2025 resolved on 3 November 2025 and published in the DOF on 26 December 2025, invalidated article 22 fraction III of that law. The Reglamento de la Ley del Sector Eléctrico, published on 3 October 2025, sets the mechanics: SENER must calculate the state's share each year by the last working day of February as state-injected generation divided by total injected generation times one hundred, using demand scenarios and an execution-risk adjustment for prospective evaluations, and must publish the Plan de Desarrollo del Sector Eléctrico each May; article 85 requires the state company's 54 percent stake in a mixed-investment vehicle to be formalised within 180 working days of commercial operation and allows it to be contributed in cash, in kind or in intangibles.

Market effect

The statute converts the constitutional slogan into a measurable annual ratio, and that ratio is the governing constraint on Mexican private generation for the rest of the decade: every megawatt-hour a private plant injects reduces the state's share, so SENER's February calculation determines how much private capacity can be permitted and when. That is why the two mixed schemes matter more than the permit rules. Long-term production is, in substance, an independent-power-producer contract with CFE as sole offtaker and no merchant upside, which suits infrastructure funds seeking contracted cash flow and is unattractive to merchant developers. Mixed investment gives the developer a market route for surplus but only through CFE as representative and with the state holding the majority of the vehicle, which changes control, consolidation and financing structures and effectively requires lenders to underwrite CFE as sponsor as well as offtaker. For existing assets the transitory articles are decisive: permits and contracts under both the 1975 and 2014 laws remain valid to the end of their terms and may not be extended, self-supply members may exit their permits to take basic or qualified supply, and SENER must publish expedited migration guidelines with a single window. Clean-energy certificates survive but with a 30-month life and an annual requirement set administratively, so their price is a policy variable rather than a market one.

Key numbers

State generation floor
At least 54 percent of average energy injected into the grid in a calendar year
Permit thresholds
0.7 MW and above requires a CNE generation permit; below that is an exempt generator
Mixed investment
State company must hold at least 54 percent of the vehicle, formalised within 180 working days of commercial operation
Clean-energy certificates
Valid 30 months; requirements set by SENER in the first four months of each year for the following three years
Key dates
LSE and LCNE published DOF 18 March 2025, in force 19 March 2025; reglamento DOF 3 October 2025

Who gains and who pays

  • Comisión Federal de Electricidad (gains): At least 54 percent of injected energy, majority stakes in mixed-investment vehicles and market representation of joint projects.
  • Independent power producers seeking contracted cash flow (gains): Long-term production contracts with the state as sole offtaker.
  • Merchant private generators (costs): Permits constrained by the 54 percent calculation; surplus sales only through CFE as representative.
  • Holders of legacy self-supply and 2014-law permits (costs): Effects preserved to term but no renewal; migration to new figures required.
  • Comisión Nacional de Energía (obligation): Replaces the CRE and must issue permits, tariff methodologies and the certificate rules.

Implementation

Transitory article three of the statute keeps the existing Reglas del Mercado, the administrative provisions containing the efficiency, quality, reliability, continuity, security and sustainability criteria, the Código de Red and other instruments in force until new ones are issued, so the market still runs on 2014-era rules under a 2025 statute. Transitory article four gave the CNE 180 days from entry into force to review and update the transmission methodologies and regulated transmission tariffs to comply with the October 2024 constitutional amendment, and the existing provisions apply until it does. Transitory articles six to nine require SENER to publish expedited migration guidelines and instruct the sector's institutions to set up a single window so holders of legacy permits can move into the new figures. The Supreme Court's invalidation of article 22 fraction III of the Ley de la Comisión Nacional de Energía, published on 26 December 2025, is so far the only judicial change to the package.

Concerns

  • Permitting capacity constrained by the annual 54 percent calculation rather than by project merit
  • CFE balance-sheet capacity to fund majority stakes in every mixed-investment vehicle
  • Market still operating on rules written for the abrogated 2014 statute
  • Loss of an autonomous regulator now that the CNE is sectorised to SENER
  • Legacy permits that expire without a renewal path, creating a capacity cliff

Dates to watch

  • 2026-02: SENER's annual calculation of the state's share of injected generation
  • 2026: Publication of new market rules and CNE transmission tariff methodologies
  • 2027: Expiry of early legacy permits with no renewal path

Sources

Checked against sources on .

Market rules and clean-energy certificates · 2014-era Reglas del Mercado still in force, certificates rebuilt with a 30-month life

Mexico · Secretaría de Energía, Comisión Nacional de Energía and CENACE (Ley del Sector Eléctrico arts. 143-146 and Reglamento arts. 180-188) · regulation · 2025

Where it stands: Legacy market rules preserved by transitorio tercero; certificate framework enacted but awaiting SENER criteria, CNE disposiciones and the electronic registry

Transitory article three of the Ley del Sector Eléctrico keeps the Reglas del Mercado, the Código de Red and CENACE's manuals in force until replacements are issued, so Mexico's wholesale market still operates on rules written for the abrogated 2014 statute; clean-energy certificates survive but are now granted by the CNE on SENER criteria, are valid 30 months, and their annual requirement is set administratively three years ahead.

The problem

Abrogating the Ley de la Industria Eléctrica on 18 March 2025 removed the statutory basis of a market that runs on hundreds of pages of secondary instruments: the Reglas del Mercado, the Manuales de Prácticas de Mercado covering dispatch, settlement, ancillary services and capacity, the Código de Red and CENACE's operating criteria. Rewriting all of them at once was impossible, and leaving a gap would have stopped settlement. At the same time the clean-energy certificate had been drained of value by the 2021 rule that awarded it to all clean generation regardless of vintage, which left Mexico with a nominal decarbonisation instrument and no functioning demand for it.

What it does

Transitory article three of the Ley del Sector Eléctrico provides that the wholesale market must operate under the Reglas del Mercado, the administrative provisions containing the criteria for efficiency, quality, reliability, continuity, security and sustainability of the national electricity system, the Código de Red and other applicable provisions in force when the statute was published, until new provisions are issued. Articles 143 to 146 of the statute rebuild the certificate regime: requirements are set as a proportion of total energy consumed at load centres in line with binding planning and system reliability; certificates are granted independently of the plant's ownership and commercial-operation date; suppliers, qualified users participating in the market and end users supplied by self-consumption are all subject to the transition and decarbonisation obligations; SENER must set the acquisition requirements in the first four months of each calendar year for the following three years and may extend them further and revise them against transition progress and binding planning; the rules must let certificates be traded, encourage long-term coverage contracts that include them, may allow banking and borrowing between periods with a charge, and give each certificate a 30-month life; and non-market participants must be able to buy, hold and sell them. The reglamento of 3 October 2025 adds that the CNE grants certificates on criteria SENER issues under the statute and the Ley de Planeación y Transición Energética, that the CNE with SENER must issue the general administrative provisions governing grant, settlement, voluntary cancellation and transactions and the electronic system that constitutes the registry, that trading and cancellation may only occur through that system, that SENER may sign agreements to homologate Mexican certificates with instruments of other jurisdictions subject to traceability, verifiability and certification criteria, that self-consumption permit holders receive certificates for their clean generation and are responsible for certificates covering the non-clean energy they supply to their consumption centres, and that distributed generation and exempt generators may receive certificates when represented by a supplier.

Market effect

Running a market on the secondary rules of an abrogated statute is workable but it freezes design: no new ancillary-services product, no storage participation model and no change to scarcity pricing can be introduced until CENACE's manuals are reissued under the new law, which is why Mexico still lacks a market route for batteries at a moment when its solar-heavy northwest needs one. For certificates the redesign is potentially significant. A 30-month life plus an annual requirement set three years ahead creates, for the first time since 2021, a forward curve a buyer can hedge against, and the explicit mandate to encourage long-term coverage contracts that bundle certificates is aimed at making them financeable again. The homologation clause is the commercially interesting one, because it opens a path for Mexican certificates to be recognised by buyers with European or North American reporting obligations, which is exactly what nearshoring manufacturers in the Bajío and the border states need. Against that, certificates are still awarded regardless of vintage, so CFE's legacy hydro and nuclear continue to supply them, and the requirement is set administratively in line with binding planning rather than by an independent decarbonisation trajectory, so the price remains a policy variable. Until SENER publishes the first requirement cycle and the CNE stands up the electronic registry, the instrument is not yet tradable under the new rules.

Key numbers

Certificate validity
30 months from grant
Requirement-setting cycle
Set by SENER in the first four months of each calendar year for the following three years
Legacy rules preserved
Reglas del Mercado, Código de Red and CENACE manuals in force until replaced (transitorio tercero)
Trading channel
Only through the electronic registry established under article 149 of the statute and article 182 of the reglamento
SENER is issuing general administrative rules under the new statute
A DACG setting criteria for the competitive reliability mechanisms of the national system was published in the DOF on 3 April 2026, so the article 182 rulemaking route is live rather than dormant
Who issues a certificate, and for what
One CEL per MWh of clean generation; where fossil fuel is used, one CEL per MWh multiplied by the fuel-free share under the applicable methodology. The plant must be clean technology under the Ley del Sector Eléctrico, registered in S-CEL and certified by an accredited unit, regardless of ownership or commercial operation date
Where they trade
CENACE runs the CEL spot market at least once a year under the Reglas del Mercado; obliged participants must cover a percentage of their consumption set by SENER

Who gains and who pays

  • Clean generators including CFE hydro and nuclear (gains): Certificates granted regardless of ownership and commercial-operation date.
  • Suppliers, market-participating qualified users and self-consumption users (obligation): Must meet the annual certificate requirement set by SENER three years ahead.
  • Corporate buyers with foreign reporting obligations (gains): Possible homologation of Mexican certificates with instruments of other jurisdictions.
  • Storage and flexibility providers (costs): No participation model until CENACE's market manuals are reissued under the new statute.
  • CENACE and the CNE (obligation): Must reissue market rules and manuals and build the certificate registry and trading system.

Implementation

The sequence is SENER criteria first, then joint CNE and SENER general administrative provisions covering grant, settlement, voluntary cancellation and transactions plus the electronic registry, then CENACE manual changes to reflect them, each passing through CONAMER before publication in the DOF. Until the registry exists, certificates cannot be transacted under the new rules and holders of pre-2025 certificates depend on the CRE-era system continuing to operate. The new Reglas del Mercado are the larger piece of work and no deadline is set for them, so the market will run on the 2014-era instruments for as long as that takes. Practical indicators to watch are the first SENER requirement publication in the first four months of a calendar year, the CONAMER filing of the certificate disposiciones, and any CENACE announcement on market manuals or a storage participation model.

Concerns

  • Market design frozen while the 2014-era Reglas del Mercado remain in force
  • No participation model for batteries or demand response in a solar-heavy system
  • Certificate price set administratively in line with binding planning rather than a decarbonisation trajectory
  • Certificates still awarded to legacy clean generation, diluting the signal for new build
  • No published deadline for the new market rules or the certificate registry

Dates to watch

  • 2027-04: Deadline within a calendar year for SENER to publish certificate requirements for the following three years
  • 2026: Expected CONAMER filings for the certificate administrative provisions and the electronic registry

Sources

Checked against sources on .

Electricity tariffs and subsidies · the residential subsidy held below inflation while industrial users pay cost

Mexico · Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público (Executive tariff agreements), CFE Suministrador de Servicios Básicos and the Comisión Nacional de Energía · decision · 2024

Where it stands: Tariffs applied monthly under Executive agreements; methodologies inherited by the CNE and awaiting the transmission update

Mexican residential electricity tariffs are set by Executive agreement, not by the regulator, and have been held to increases at or below inflation since 2019 through a subsidy worth tens of billions of pesos a year; commercial and industrial users on basic supply face the full tariff, and the March 2025 statutes moved responsibility for transmission, distribution and basic-supply tariff methodologies from the CRE to the Comisión Nacional de Energía.

The problem

Mexico has run a general residential electricity subsidy since long before the 2014 reform: consumption below a monthly threshold is charged at a fraction of cost and only high-consumption households fall into the unsubsidised domestic-high-consumption tariff, with the difference funded from the federal budget and absorbed in CFE's accounts. The subsidy is regressive, weak as an efficiency signal and expensive, and it coexists with industrial tariffs that recover cost and with a growing nearshoring load in the north whose competitiveness depends on the industrial tariff. The 2021-25 policy shift also removed the institutional buffer that had kept tariff methodology at arm's length, so the entire structure now rests on Executive decisions.

What it does

Residential and agricultural end-user tariffs are set by agreement of the Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, published in the DOF, rather than by the energy regulator; the government's standing commitment since 2019 has been that residential tariffs do not rise above inflation, delivered by adjusting the subsidised consumption bands and the summer tariffs each year while CFE Suministrador de Servicios Básicos publishes the monthly schedules. Commercial and industrial basic-supply tariffs are cost-reflective and move with fuel and market prices, and qualified users buy in the wholesale market or from qualified supply. The methodologies underlying regulated transmission, distribution and basic-supply tariffs were CRE decisions until the Ley del Sector Eléctrico and the Ley de la Comisión Nacional de Energía transferred them, with every other CRE function, to the Comisión Nacional de Energía on 19 March 2025, while prior CRE resolutions remain in force until replaced. Transitory article four of the Ley del Sector Eléctrico gave the CNE 180 days from entry into force to review and update the transmission methodologies and regulated transmission tariffs so as to comply with the constitutional amendment on strategic areas and companies published on 31 October 2024, and provides that the existing provisions continue to apply until the updates are issued. Any new general tariff rule must pass through the Comisión Nacional de Mejora Regulatoria with a regulatory impact analysis before publication in the DOF.

Market effect

The subsidy decouples household demand from cost, so Mexican residential consumption responds to weather rather than to price and the summer peak in Sonora, Sinaloa and the peninsula is larger than an unsubsidised system would produce, which is precisely where the reserve margin is thinnest; that is a direct reliability cost of the tariff policy. For CFE the subsidy is a transfer that stabilises its retail revenue but leaves the basic-supply business dependent on annual budget decisions. For industrial and commercial users the practical consequence of the tariff structure plus the post-2021 restrictions on qualified supply is that many large loads that would have migrated to the wholesale market remain on cost-reflective basic supply, and nearshoring investors evaluating Mexican sites now underwrite both a tariff and an interconnection timetable. The transfer of methodology to the CNE matters because the transmission tariff is the instrument through which the cost of the planned network build will be recovered, and a body sectorised to SENER is more likely to set that tariff in line with the state's expansion programme than an autonomous regulator balancing the interests of network users.

Key numbers

Residential tariff policy
Increases held at or below inflation since 2019, delivered through Executive agreements published in the DOF
Regulator transfer
CRE functions, including tariff methodologies, transferred to the CNE on 19 March 2025
Transmission tariff review
180 days from entry into force of the Ley del Sector Eléctrico for the CNE to update transmission methodologies and tariffs
Rulemaking route
Every general tariff rule must clear CONAMER with a regulatory impact analysis before DOF publication
Transitorio cuarto has been acted on
The CNE issued its first transmission methodology under it by ACUERDO published in the DOF on 18 June 2026, setting the charge the Suministradora levies on permit holders whose interconnection and transmission agreements were signed under the old Ley del Servicio Público de Energía Eléctrica
What that methodology does and does not cover
It addresses the legacy LSPEE permit population specifically. It is evidence the 180-day duty is being discharged, not proof that the whole transmission tariff schedule has been reissued
Who signs
Juan Carlos Solís Ávila, Director General of the Comisión Nacional de Energía, citing article 11 and transitorio cuarto of the Ley del Sector Eléctrico and articles 118-119 of its reglamento

Who gains and who pays

  • Residential consumers below the high-consumption threshold (gains): Tariffs held at or below inflation through the general subsidy.
  • Federal budget and CFE (costs): Fund the gap between subsidised residential tariffs and the cost of supply.
  • Commercial and industrial basic-supply users (costs): Cost-reflective tariffs that move with fuel and market prices.
  • Comisión Nacional de Energía (obligation): Inherited the CRE's tariff methodologies and must update transmission tariffs under transitory article four.
  • Qualified users and qualified suppliers (mixed): Market purchasing remains available but is narrower than under the 2014 framework.

Implementation

Tariff schedules are published monthly by CFE Suministrador de Servicios Básicos under the Executive agreements, with the summer bands reset each year for the hot-weather states. Prior CRE resolutions continue to govern transmission, distribution and basic-supply tariff calculation until the CNE replaces them, and the CNE's transmission-tariff update under transitory article four is the first substantive test of the new regulator. Because the residential subsidy is decided annually in the budget rather than by formula, the figure to track is the appropriation and the CFE result rather than any tariff resolution. Watch the DOF for the CNE's transmission tariff disposiciones, for the annual residential tariff agreement, and for any change to the domestic-high-consumption threshold.

Concerns

  • Regressive and fiscally costly general residential subsidy with no reform path announced
  • Demand signal absent exactly where the reserve margin is thinnest in summer
  • Transmission tariff methodology now set by a body sectorised to the energy ministry
  • Industrial competitiveness for nearshoring load if cost-reflective tariffs rise
  • Annual budget dependence of CFE's basic-supply revenue

Dates to watch

  • 2027-01: Annual residential tariff agreement and summer band reset
  • 2026: CNE publication of updated transmission tariff methodologies

Sources

Checked against sources on .

CFE primacy · the March 2021 LIE dispatch reform and the 31 October 2024 constitutional amendment

Mexico · Congreso de la Unión (Decreto DOF 09-03-2021 amending the Ley de la Industria Eléctrica; Decreto DOF 31-10-2024 amending articles 25, 27 and 28 of the Constitution) · statute · 2021

Where it stands: 2021 LIE reform survived the Supreme Court and was superseded by the March 2025 statutes; the 2024 constitutional amendment is the controlling text

The 2021 reform of the Ley de la Industria Eléctrica put state legacy plants ahead of private renewables in dispatch, made long-term auctions optional and granted clean-energy certificates to all clean generation regardless of ownership or vintage; the Supreme Court could not muster the eight votes to strike it down, and the 31 October 2024 constitutional amendment then wrote CFE's primacy into articles 25, 27 and 28.

The problem

The 2013-14 constitutional and legislative reform opened Mexican generation and supply to competition, created the wholesale market, gave CENACE independent dispatch on least-variable-cost merit order, and used long-term auctions and clean-energy certificates to bring in about 30 GW of private capacity, much of it wind and solar. From 2019 the incoming government treated that architecture as a transfer of rents from CFE to foreign investors: CFE's legacy thermal fleet was being displaced, its basic-supply customers still carried the system's costs, and the clean-energy certificate had become an asset for new private plants rather than a subsidy for new clean build. Because the market design sat in a statute rather than the Constitution, the administration first tried to change it by law and administrative act, and only after losing repeatedly in court did it change the Constitution.

What it does

The decree published in the evening edition of the Diario Oficial de la Federación on 9 March 2021 amended articles 3, 4, 12, 26, 35, 53, 101, 108 and 126 of the Ley de la Industria Eléctrica. It redefined a Legacy Power Plant as a state-owned plant regardless of how it was financed; created the physical-delivery coverage contract, which only basic-supply companies may sign; made article 26 require CENACE to give dispatch priority in network use to legacy plants and legacy external plants holding physical-delivery commitments; rewrote article 101 so that assignment and dispatch follow dispatch-security and economic-efficiency criteria while taking those physical-delivery contracts into account; changed article 53 so that basic suppliers may, rather than must, contract coverage through CENACE auctions, which ended the mandatory long-term auction programme; and rewrote article 126 so that clean-energy certificates are awarded without regard to ownership or commercial-operation date. Transitory article three gave SENER, the CRE and CENACE 180 days to align every instrument, and transitory article four ordered the CRE to revoke self-supply permits granted in fraud of the law. Hundreds of private generators obtained amparos and a district court granted a general suspension; in April 2022 the Supreme Court heard acción de inconstitucionalidad 64/2021 and, although a majority of justices considered key articles unconstitutional, the eight votes needed for a general declaration were not reached, so the reform survived while individual plaintiffs kept their protection. The decree published on 31 October 2024, in materia de áreas y empresas estratégicas, then amended the fifth paragraph of article 25, the sixth and seventh paragraphs of article 27 and the fourth paragraph of article 28 of the Constitution: it replaced empresa productiva del Estado with empresa pública del Estado, barred concessions over lithium, provided that private parties may take part in the remaining electricity activities but in no case with prevalence over the state company, and made the national electricity system's objectives energy security and self-sufficiency and supplying the people at the lowest possible price without profit-seeking, through the state company.

Market effect

The 2021 reform changed the economics of every private plant in Mexico at once. Priority for legacy and physical-delivery plants pushes cheap wind and solar down the stack in hours when CFE units are running, which raises system cost and cuts private capacity factors; making auctions optional ended the mechanism that had delivered new capacity at some of the lowest solar prices in the world, and no long-term auction has been held since 2018; and issuing certificates to all clean generation, including CFE's legacy hydro, collapsed the scarcity that gave certificates value, stranding revenue assumptions in post-2014 project models and in the balance sheets of the companies that had bought them. The practical position between 2021 and 2025 was legal fragmentation: plants with amparos were dispatched on the old rules, plants without them were not, and the risk premium on Mexican power assets rose accordingly. The 2024 constitutional amendment removed the legal route that fragmentation depended on, because a statute implementing an express constitutional command of non-prevalence is far harder to enjoin than one that contradicts a competition clause. For investors the amendment is the point at which Mexico stopped being a liberalised market with state participation and became a state-led market with private participation, which is the premise the March 2025 statutes then built on.

Key numbers

LIE reform decree
DOF 9 March 2021, evening edition; articles 3, 4, 12, 26, 35, 53, 101, 108 and 126 amended
Alignment deadline
180 calendar days for SENER, CRE and CENACE to conform all regulatory instruments
Supreme Court outcome
Acción de inconstitucionalidad 64/2021 failed to reach the eight votes needed for a general declaration of invalidity (April 2022)
Constitutional amendment
DOF 31 October 2024; article 25 paragraph 5, article 27 paragraphs 6 and 7, article 28 paragraph 4
Long-term auctions held since the reform
None; the last was in 2018

Who gains and who pays

  • Comisión Federal de Electricidad (gains): Dispatch priority for legacy plants and constitutional primacy as the empresa pública del Estado.
  • Private wind and solar generators (costs): Lower dispatch, no new long-term auctions and devalued clean-energy certificates.
  • Holders of clean-energy certificates (costs): Certificates issued to all clean generation regardless of vintage, collapsing their value.
  • Qualified users and self-supply members (costs): Self-supply permits targeted for revocation under transitory article four.
  • CENACE (obligation): Must dispatch taking physical-delivery coverage contracts and legacy priority into account.

Implementation

The 2021 reform was implemented through CENACE operating criteria and CRE resolutions during 2021 and 2022 and then partially neutralised, plaintiff by plaintiff, through amparo suspensions, so the market ran on two sets of rules for four years. The 2024 constitutional amendment set the agenda for secondary legislation, delivered on 18 March 2025 when Congress abrogated the Ley de la Industria Eléctrica and enacted the Ley del Sector Eléctrico, the Ley de la Comisión Nacional de Energía, the Ley de Planeación y Transición Energética and the law governing CFE as an empresa pública del Estado. Under transitory article nine of the new statute, permits and contracts granted under the Ley de la Industria Eléctrica keep their effects until their terms expire but cannot be extended, so the 2021 litigation is being resolved by attrition rather than by judgment. What remains to watch is how the courts treat amparos granted under the old framework once the enabling statute no longer exists.

Concerns

  • Higher system cost from dispatching legacy plants ahead of cheaper renewables
  • Loss of the clean-energy certificate as a financeable revenue stream
  • Legal fragmentation between plants with and without amparo protection
  • No new long-term auctions since 2018 and a widening capacity gap
  • Investor-state claims under USMCA and bilateral treaties

Dates to watch

  • 2027: Expiry of early legacy self-supply and independent-production permits that cannot be extended
  • 2026: Continuing federal-court rulings on amparos granted under the abrogated statute

Sources

Checked against sources on .