CFE Obtains Credit: The Week in Energy

CABEI approved a credit line of up to US$500 million for CFE's Trust for Conventional Generation Projects, structured as a PIDIREGAS-type off-balance-sheet facility that allows drawdowns as specific generation projects reach commissioning milestones. 

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CABEI Approves US$500 Million Credit Line for CFE's Conventional Generation

The financing targets the gas-fired combined-cycle plants that form the backbone of CFE's firm dispatchable capacity additions through 2030, individually costing between US$347 million and US$704 million each. Together with a US$300 million CAF facility approved in December 2025 and an EIB framework agreed in May 2026, the CABEI line brings total committed multilateral development financing for Mexico's electricity infrastructure to over US$950 million, providing CFE with concessional capital to partially fund a US$30 billion buildout at a moment when its federal budget was cut 16.7% in real terms for 2026.

EU Clears Grupo México-BlackRock Deal, Creating Mexico's Largest Private Generation Platform

The European Commission approved the merger of Grupo México's electricity generation assets with Saavi Energía, removing the last regulatory hurdle before closing in 3Q26. The deal, valued at US$5.5 billion, establishes a 70/30 ownership split between Grupo México and BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners, creating a platform with 14 plants totaling 4,510MW of installed capacity, surpassing Cox's 2,600MW, plus a development pipeline of approximately 5,000MW. Strategically, the combination functions as vertical integration for Grupo México's Southern Copper mining operations, locking in low-cost electricity supply for one of the world's largest copper producers.

CFE Launches National Grid Coordination Table; Three Key States Absent

CFE Director Emilia Calleja convened a permanent coordination table with representatives of 29 of Mexico's 32 states on June 29, formally launching the CFE Conectada Contigo mechanism to address recurring local grid failures and summer demand peaks. The initiative is backed by a MX$15 billion distribution equipment renewal program for 2025–2026, covering 301,000 poles, 34,000km of conductors, and 1.695 million new meters, as part of a broader MX$244 billion transmission and distribution expansion plan through 2030. The politically significant detail: Nuevo León, Coahuila, and San Luis Potosi, three of the most industrially intensive states and the most affected by summer outages, were all absent, with Nuevo Leon's delegation reported to be following a World Cup match at the time.

Mexico Falls to 59th in WEF Energy Transition Index, Down 22 Places Since 2018

Mexico dropped four positions to rank 59th out of 120 economies in the WEF's Energy Transition Index 2026, with a system performance score of 66.9 but a transition readiness score of just 41, a 25-point gap that reflects the deterioration of regulatory, investment, and infrastructure enabling conditions over the past seven years. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia all passed Mexico this year, and the country now ranks below Chile (20th), Colombia (43rd), and Argentina (56th) in Latin America. The decline from 37th in 2018 to 59th in 2026 spans two administrations and tracks the suspension of clean energy auctions, erosion of private investment certainty, and the structural gas dependency that the Iran conflict made materially more expensive throughout 2026.

Puerto Peñasco BESS Goes Live, Making It the Americas' Largest Solar Plant in Progress

CFE activated battery energy storage systems at the Rafael Galván Maldonado photovoltaic plant in Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, with Sections I and II now contributing 72MW of storage alongside their 400MW of solar generation to the national grid. Two additional phases under construction will add 174MW of storage and 600MW of generation, bringing the facility's totals to 246MW of BESS and 1,000MW of generation, making it the largest photovoltaic plant in the Americas once complete, at a total investment exceeding US$1.4 billion.