The electricity reform proposal to put the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) at the center of the market would increase carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the Mexican electricity system between 52 and 59.7% by 2030, according to a new study carried out by the main national renewable energy organizations and the Business Coordinating Council (CCE).
The key objective of the constitutional reform is for the national electricity company to regain market share in electricity generation, after it lost exclusivity in this activity in 2013. The initiative sent from the presidency stipulates a new order in which energy will be raised to dispatch system, to put the hydroelectric plants and the rest of the CFE plants at the beginning of the line, which mostly produce electricity with fossil fuels, some of them highly polluting, such as coal or fuel oil. Wind and solar generation systems, mainly private ones, would remain in one of the final parts of the supply.
The latest Program for the Development of the Wholesale Electricity System (Prodesen), one of the key government documents on energy, raises CO2 emissions of 96 million tons in 2030. This data is based on a scenario in which the country increases from The use of electrical energy produced in wind and solar power plants progressively to meet the goals to which it has committed itself at the international level.
But, if the reform is approved, the study, carried out by the Commission for Private Sector Studies for Sustainable Development of the CCE, proposes that in 2030 Mexico reports emissions of between 156 and 167 million tons of greenhouse gases. This last data is part of the highest scenario.
“To the extent that these technologies are privileged, which is what the reform says, that the dispatch of CFE plants will be privileged, since obviously they will increase emissions. In the case of private companies that generate with fossil fuels, the main thing they have is a combined cycle [generation with natural gas]. However, these combined cycles or efficient private cogenerations, much more efficient in emissions, will also be displaced [with the reform] “, says Jose Ramón Ardavín, the director of the Private Sector Studies Commission for Sustainable Development. The reform proposes that the power plants that run on natural gas and those most used to transition from the use of fossil fuels to renewable ones, remain at the end of the dispatch row.
Assuming that the reform was approved in the remainder of the year, by 2023 the increase in greenhouse gas emissions would be between 41 and 47% compared to the scenario set by the Sener online of compliance with the goals that Mexico has set in the Paris Agreement.
If the reform is approved in the current terms, as the president has sent it, some CFE plants, such as coal or internal combustion plants, which were planned to go out of dispatch in the coming years, will be able to continue operating and producing electricity for above solar and wind power plants that, due to the way in which the 2013 reform was planned, are owned by private initiative.
