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By THE PULSE NEWS MEXICO STAFF

Just weeks before the summer season begins and after the implementation of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) crackdown on private, green energy production, Mexico’s National Center for Energy Control (Cenace), which is in charge of controlling the electrical system, has announced that the country should brace for a series of widespread blackouts in the months ahead.

Cenace General Director Ricardo Mota Palomino, in an energy forum earlier this month, said that the main culprits behind the pending blackouts will be private-sector energy companies, which have been banned from producing and distributing electricity by AMLO through his controversial Electricity Industry Law (LIE), which prioritizes inefficient, expensive and dirty state-run power production over private green alternatives.

Mota Palomino also admitted that the lack of maintenance in government-run transmission networks will contribute significantly to the blackouts.

“We currently have risks of blackouts due to the unplanned high penetration of intermittent generation, the lag that exists in the growth of the national transmission network, the laxity with which the regulations were applied to operate this type of intermittent plant,s and the lack of payment of related services for conventional power plants,” he said.

He acknowledged that the Cenace restrictions on private generation haven give rise to legal recourse for those affected.

“And when the Federal Electricity Commission complains or Cenace tries to strengthen the reserves (of capacity), lawsuits appear claiming, that these rules violate the rights of private generators and litigation begins,” he said.

There are currently more than 200 active appeals against the Electricity Industry Law, pending discussion before the Supreme Court,.