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By KELIN DILLON

According to the Mexican Federal Electricity Commission’s (CFE) 2024-2028 Business Plan, the state-owned electricity company is preparing to invest 446.2 billion pesos into new initiatives over the next five years.

The CFE has purportedly allocated 191.8 billion pesos toward generation projects in its aforementioned plan and budgeted another 108.2 billion pesos and 135.8 billion pesos respectively for the construction and distribution of transmission projects.

But despite the 446.2 billion pesos supposedly delegated towards these infrastructure investments, the viability and approval of said projects will remain at the discretion of the CFE’s Board of Directors, its subsidiaries and the company’s investment commission.

The business plan likewise failed to stipulate the specifics of the projects or their projected development dates, though the CFE noted that it’s going to implement a planning mechanism to evaluate potential initiatives to be funded by the budget.

“The CFE Planning Mechanism is a consolidated document that integrates a list of investment programs and projects of the companies, determined based on a preliminary technical, economic and financial evaluation, as well as preliminary profitability and risk criteria and/or or pre-feasibility for the short, medium and long term,” said the CFE.

In the opinion of Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (Imco) Energy Practice Coordinator Oscar Ocampo, the CFE business plan’s proposed budget gives little certainty of its practical investment due to discrepancies between the CFE’s numbers and the budget outlined in the 2024 Expenditure Budget of the Federation (PEF).

“The PEF allocates 54 billion pesos for 2024 and the CFE business plan budgets 141 billion pesos for the year, so there is a lack of congruence between the two and it subsequently becomes difficult to follow up on what the CFE can do,” said Ocampo, adding that transparency surrounding the CFE’s available funds has continually diminished over recent years. 

“If the CFE is going to invest that amount, then that is fine, but it is strange how they are reporting the investment, especially those derived from trusts,” concluded Ocampo. “The CFE’s business plans have become increasingly short.”