CFE Marks 88 Years; Highlights Energy Justice, Sovereignty

CFE marked its 88th anniversary this past week with a ceremony led by Minister of Energy Luz Elena González and CFE Director General Emilia Esther Calleja, highlighting the utility’s expanded role under the country’s renewed state-led energy policy.

González framed the CFE’s 1937 creation as a response to the need to make electricity “a right for all Mexicans,” praising workers and leadership for uniting “in a historic moment” to secure the company’s future. Calleja described CFE as a “transcendent legacy” present in homes, workplaces, and communities, and welcomed secondary legislation signed in March by President Claudia Sheinbaum that restores centralized planning for the power sector and, for the first time, enshrines “energy justice” in law.

Héctor López Villarreal, Director of Operations, recalled the leadership of CFE’s first head, Carlos Ramírez Ulloa, and the teams who ensure daily electricity delivery. Representing CFE staff, biologist Veneranda Rubio Pérez detailed her role in preparing environmental and archaeological studies ahead of new infrastructure projects, stressing, “There are no impossibles for the CFE.”

A commemorative video traced the company’s history from its foundation under President Lázaro Cárdenas, through nationalization in 1960, to its current position as a pillar of Mexico’s energy sovereignty under Sheinbaum’s administration.