The Comisión Federal de Electricidad () is the

state-owned State ownership, also called public ownership or government ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, property, or enterprise by the national government of a country or state, or a public body representing a community, as opposed to ...

electric utility An electric utility, or a power company, is a company in the electric power industry (often a public utility) that engages in electricity generation and distribution of electricity for sale generally in a regulated market. Electric utilities are ...

of Mexico, widely known as CFE. The Mexican

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states that the government is responsible for the control and development of the national electric industry, and CFE carries out this mission. The company's slogan is "Una empresa de clase mundial" ("A World-Class Company").

Affiliations

CFE is not a part of the

North American Electric Reliability Corporation The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) is a nonprofit corporation based in Atlanta, Georgia, and formed on March 28, 2006, as the successor to the North American Electric Reliability Council (also known as NERC). The original ...

, though its transmission system in northern

Baja California Baja California, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, is a state in Mexico. It is the northwesternmost of the 32 federal entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1952, the area was known as the North Territory of B ...

is part of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council through its interconnection with San Diego Gas & Electric via the Miguel-Tijuana and the LaRosita-Imperial Valley Lines and the

Path 45 A path is a route for physical travel – see Trail. Path or PATH may also refer to: Physical paths of different types * Bicycle path * Bridle path, used by people on horseback * Course (navigation), the intended path of a vehicle * Desire p ...

corridor; it also has a few other interconnections across the border with local utilities in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. On August 2, 2019, the federal government announced it will provide Internet access throughout the country through the establishment of a subsidiary of the Comisión Federal de Electricidad called ''CFE Telecomunicaciones e Internet para Todos'' (CFE Telecommunications and Internet for All).

Takeover of Luz y Fuerza del Centro

On 12 October 2009, President

Felipe Calderón Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa (; born 18 August 1962) is a Mexican politician and lawyer who served as the 63rd president of Mexico from 2006 to 2012 and Secretary of Energy during the presidency of Vicente Fox between 2003 and 2004. ...

issued a decree dissolving Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LFC, also rendered on logo as "LyF"), the state-owned power company serving most of central Mexico—including

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

, most of the

State of Mexico The State of Mexico, officially just Mexico, is one of the 32 federal entities of the United Mexican States. Colloquially known as Edomex (from , the abbreviation of , and ), to distinguish it from the name of the whole country, it is the mo ...

and some communities in the states of

Morelos Morelos, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Morelos, is a landlocked state located in south-central Mexico. It is one of the 32 states which comprise the Political divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into Mun ...

, Hidalgo and

Puebla Puebla, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Puebla, is one of the 31 states that, along with Mexico City, comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 217 municipalities and its capital is Puebla City. Part of east-centr ...

. The government claimed that spending had outpaced sales; turning a blind eye to the true reasons for such situation, it instead scapeagoated it due to massive featherbedding, and it no longer made sense for the company to stay afloat.Mexico Power Takeover Creates Sparks
/ref> According to the government, spending at the company was increasingly outpacing sales. Years before, CFE went on to control the national electric system and expand its operations nationwide, while the smaller LFC kept a low profile, maintaining its operations in the central region of Mexico. LFC provided electricity to several states where, by virtue of a federal law, CFE had no operations (a 1985 agreement between CFE and LFC increased the areas served by the former). As of March 2010, LFC's operations had been fully absorbed by CFE.

Controversies

Two corruption scandals in the US cite payments of bribes to officials at the CFE in return for contracts.

2010

In September 2010, ABB, a Swiss corporation, admitted that ''ABB Network Management'', paid bribes to officials at CFE from 1997 to 2004, totaling approximately $1.9 million. In exchange for the bribe payments, according to court documents, ABB received contracts worth more than $81 million in revenue. The matter was resolved in September 2010 in a US court.

2011

In May 2011, Lindsey Manufacturing Company of the US was convicted by a US federal jury under the

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) (, ''et seq.'') is a United States federal law that prohibits U.S. citizens and entities from Bribery, bribing foreign government officials to benefit their business interests. The FCPA is applic ...

(FCPA) for their alleged roles in a scheme to pay bribes to officials at the CFE. The bribes were paid through an intermediary, who allegedly had a corrupt relationship with a senior CFE official. Lindsey Manufacturing allegedly received more than $19 million in CFE business over the course of seven years as a result of working through the intermediary. According to evidence presented at trial, the intermediary bought a CFE official a $297,500

Ferrari Ferrari S.p.A. (; ) is an Italian luxury sports car manufacturer based in Maranello. Founded in 1939 by Enzo Ferrari (1898–1988), the company built Auto Avio Costruzioni 815, its first car in 1940, adopted its current name in 1945, and be ...

Spyder and a $1.8 million yacht, as well as paying more than $170,000 towards the official's credit card bills. In December 2011, a US District Court dismissed the indictments against Lindsey Manufacturing, citing misconduct by the prosecution. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) said it planned to appeal the dismissal, but in May 2012 the government withdrew its appeal.

2016

Enrique Ochoa Reza settlement agreement scandal

In September 2016, it was reported by Pablo Gomez from Aristegui Noticias, that Enrique Ochoa Reza, who had stepped down two months earlier as head of the commission after being selected leader of his party, had received $1,206,000.00 pesos as a settlement agreement, despite voluntarily resigning his position. Furthermore, Ochoa Reza stayed on the commission's top job for only two years and 155 days, while the "Manual de Trabajo de Servidores Publicos de Mando la CFE" (the regulation concerning high-ranking positions in the CFE) clearly stipulates that settlements can only apply after a minimum three years on the job, and only to those individuals whose retirement is not voluntary. The payment probably constituted a violation of the Mexican Constitution's Article 127 as well, which prohibits settlements of this nature in favour of state-owned corporations' employees (with few exceptions). Despite the media and popular backlash, Ochoa maintained the settlement agreement was legal. Two months later, in response to the 2016 San Pablito Market fireworks explosion that occurred in Tultepec on December 20, 2016, Ochoa announced he had given the 1.2 million pesos to the UNAM Foundation and the Michou and Mau Foundation, which specializes in the rehabilitation of children with severe burns.

2020 blackout

Millions of people in Mexico City, State of Mexico, Nuevo León, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Sinaloa, Yucatán, Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, Oaxaca, Veracruz, and other states were left without electricity for several hours during a blackout that began at 2:29 p.m. CST on December 28,

2020 The year 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of even ...

; restoration of service began twenty-three minutes later and was completely restored by 4:12 p.m. The ''Centro Nacional de Control de Energía'' ("National Center for Energy Control, CENACE) said the blackout was due to an “imbalance in the National Interconnected System between the load and the power generation causing a loss of approximately 7,500 MW” and that automatic protection schemes were activated in order to avoid a greater risk due to the incident in the system. Manuel Bartlett, director of CFE, and Carlos Meléndez, general director of CENACE, said that there was no damage to the national electricity system, nor there was any economic loss due to the blackout. CFE reported on December 30 that the blackout was caused by a fire in of grasslands in the municipality of Padilla, Tamaulipas. However, the

Tamaulipas Tamaulipas, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tamaulipas, is a state in Mexico; one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It is divided into 43 municipalities. It is located in nor ...

State Civil Protection Coordination rejected the document presented by the CFE, saying the document was falsified, and the state announced on January 3, 2021, that it planned to sue the CFE. Meanwhile, President

Andrés Manuel López Obrador Andrés Manuel López Obrador (; born 13 November 1953), also known by his initials AMLO, is a Mexican former politician, political scientist, public administrator and writer who served as the 65th president of Mexico from 2018 to 2024. He se ...

reiterated his support for Manuel Bartlett and promised that a similar blackout would not occur again. After the state of Tamaulipas threatened to sue, Bartlett admitted the accusation of grassfires had been falsified and suggested the blackout was caused by renewable energy sources.

February 2021 winter storm

The

February 13–17, 2021 North American winter storm The February 13–17, 2021 North American winter storm was a crippling winter storm, winter and ice storm that had widespread impacts across the United States, Northern Mexico, and parts of Canada from February 13 to 17, 2021. The storm, unoff ...

caused blackouts Texas and northern Mexico and cost at least three dozen lives in Mexico and the United States. 5.9 million users were directly affected users in Nuevo León, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and Chihuahua along the Texas border and users in Aguascalientes, Colima, State of México, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Jalisco, Michoacán, Nayarit, Puebla, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, and Zacatecas were indirectly affected by rolling blackouts. Rocío Nahle García, Secretary of Energy, asked the populace to save energy, and AMLO announced that Mexico would increase the use of oil and coal to produce electricity as well as purchase three shiploads of natural gas to deal with power shortages. He also warned that periodic local outages would continue through February 21. 100% of power was restored by the afternoon of February 17.

Proposed reforms 2021

On February 1, 2021, President

(AMLO) sent an initiative to reform the Electricity Industry Law to the

Congress of the Union The Congress of the Union (, ), formally known as the General Congress of the United Mexican States (''Congreso General de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos''), is the legislature of the federal government of Mexico. It consists of two chambers: t ...

. The proposal, which must be approved in 30 days, would reverse the energy reform approved under former president Enrique Peña Nieto. There are four priorities: 1) hydroelectric energy, 2) other energy produced by CFE (

nuclear Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: *Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics * Nuclear space *Nuclear ...

, geothermal, thermoelectric, and combined cycle gas turbines), 3)

wind Wind is the natural movement of atmosphere of Earth, air or other gases relative to a planetary surface, planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heatin ...

and

solar Solar may refer to: Astronomy * Of or relating to the Sun ** Solar telescope, a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun ** A device that utilizes solar energy (e.g. "solar panels") ** Solar calendar, a calendar whose dates indicate t ...

energy produced by individuals, and 4) other. AMLO argues that previous reforms were made with the intention of privatizing the energy sector and will require either massive subsidies or huge price increases for consumers. CFE declared on February 12 that if the current scheme of contracts with independent energy producers (PIE) is maintained, the damage to the nation is estimated at MXN $412 billion due to subsidies, exchange risks and inflation, low dispatch, and rising rates. MXN $56.18 billion corresponds to the Spanish-owned

Iberdrola Iberdrola, S.A. () is a Spanish multinational electric utility company based in Bilbao, Spain. It has around 40,000 employees and serves around 30 million customers. Subsidiary, Subsidiaries include ScottishPower (United Kingdom), Ava ...

for the La Venta wind farm in Oaxaca. CFE estimates that an end to the subsidies will save consumers 20%-30%.

References

External links

CFE official siteServicio de Administración y Enajenación de Bienes (SAE) "Organismo Descentralizado Luz y Fuerza del Centro" (LFC)Mexico: The Murder of a Union and the Rebirth of Class Struggle
by Richard Roman and Edur Velasco Arregui, ''The Bullet'' #279, November 25, 2009.
Mexico Energy Projects
{{DEFAULTSORT:Comision Federal De Electricidad Government-owned companies of Mexico Energy in Mexico Mexican companies established in 1937