SENER Unveils MX$21.4B plan to Achieve 99.99% Electrification

President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration has launched a MX$21.377 billion rural electrification program to bridge Mexico's remaining grid gap, targeting 99.99% national electricity coverage by 2028. This infrastructure push operationalizes the "energy justice" legal framework established in the recent constitutional reforms, pivoting from commercial asset models to state-guaranteed social rights for over 8,247 historically marginalized and indigenous communities. Executed by CFE, the 45,182 planned works, incorporating localized solar microgrids and urban regularization, directly benefit construction, transmission, and renewable technology providers while shifting public expenditure toward local distribution networks.

President Claudia Sheinbaum presented a national electrification initiative at her June 18 morning press conference, framing universal access to electricity as a matter of social justice rather than infrastructure policy. SENER Minister Luz Elena González and CFE Director General Emilia Calleja detailed the plan, which commits MX$21.377 billion to electrify the 8,247 communities in Mexico that currently lack grid access, with a goal of reaching 99.99% national coverage by 2028.

González explained that the initiative traces back to the 2024 electricity sector reform, which for the first time formally recognized "energy justice" as a legal concept, establishing access to energy as a dimension of social justice and wellbeing rather than treating electricity purely as a commercial service. "For the first time, the dimension of justice and well-being regarding access to energy through rights is recognized," she said, adding that the more than 45,000 electrification works planned over the coming years are designed to ensure the concept "it will not just remain on paper."

Calleja presented data placing the current administration's electrification pace in historical context. Between 2006 and 2012, under Felipe Calderón, Mexico carried out 12,630 electrification works. Between 2012 and 2018, under Enrique Peña Nieto, that figure rose to 14,505. Under López Obrador's administration, 21,645 works were completed, roughly 35% more than the prior two administrations combined on average.

Under Sheinbaum, the government projects 45,182 electrification works by 2028, making her administration, of the last four, the one with the most infrastructure delivered to bring electricity to the country. Calleja characterized the jump as representing an increase of more than 300% relative to the 2006–2018 period combined.

The Infrastructure Behind the Push

Calleja detailed the scale of CFE's existing network as the foundation for the expansion. The utility operates 162 generation plants, more than 111,000km of transmission lines, more than 914,000km of distribution networks, and more than 2,346 electrical substations, infrastructure she described as among the largest in the world.

Sheinbaum specified that part of the broader MX$200 billion electricity investment package includes transformer replacement and distribution line substitution work currently underway under Calleja's direction, distinct from the MX$21.377 billion allocated specifically to the new electrification works targeting unconnected communities.

The plan prioritizes historically excluded and geographically isolated communities, with specific allocations disclosed for 2026. The Plan de Justicia del Pueblo Seri will receive MX$1.2 million for a project benefiting 108 people. The Plan Villa de Juárez will receive MX$2.8 million for three works benefiting 640 people. The Plan de Justicia de San Quintín will receive MX$86 million for 30 works benefiting 7,826 people.

Sheinbaum illustrated the human dimension of the plan with two concrete examples. In Durango, during a 2024 visit to the Plan de Justicia de la Montaña, she recalled asking residents whether their community had electricity outside of the temporary generator brought for her event; they said no, and the community has since been electrified by CFE. In the Sierra Tarahumara, where the Rarámuri people live in highly dispersed mountain settlements, the government is using photovoltaic panels and solar energy rather than grid extension, given the terrain's scale and isolation.

Sheinbaum also cited Bosques de Tepeximilpa, an irregular settlement in Tlalpan, Mexico City, adjacent to the city's Ecological Park, that has existed for more than 40 years without formal electricity access; residents had been informally tapping into the grid. The case required a parallel process of land-use regularization alongside electrification, and the settlement has now been formally connected with individual meters for all residents. She noted that the electrification effort concentrates mainly in central and southern Mexico, though it also extends to northern states including Durango and Chihuahua.

CFE's broader 2026 justice-plan allocations include 765 works in Michoacan benefiting 19,000 people, and 918 works completed in the Sierra Tarahumara in Chihuahua, representing an investment of MX$670 million benefiting 8,795 people. Across all indigenous peoples' communities combined, the plan includes 1,520 works benefiting 39,000 people. In total, these justice plans comprise 2,318 electrification works with an investment of approximately MX$1.205 billion.

The 99.85% Milestone and the 50 Millionth User

Calleja closed her presentation by noting that Mexico currently sits at 99.85% electricity coverage, and that CFE has reached 50 million contracted users nationally, a figure she marked by sending a greeting to the utility's 50-millionth customers.

Sheinbaum and her cabinet were explicit that full literal coverage is not the technical target. González explained that the 99.99% goal reflects the dynamic nature of Mexico's electrical system: continuous population growth, new housing developments, schools, and health centers continually require new connections, meaning a small residual gap is structurally unavoidable even as the system approaches universal coverage.

An Announcement Layered Onto a Month of Generation News

The electrification announcement arrives during the most concentrated month of CFE infrastructure news in recent memory. It follows the June 13 inauguration of the 357MW Manzanillo III combined-cycle plant, where Sheinbaum and González were photographed together days earlier, and the June 5 award of 37 mixed development renewable projects totaling 7,411MW. Where those announcements focused on generation capacity for industrial and urban demand centers, the MX$21.377 billion electrification plan targets the opposite end of the grid: the smallest, most remote, and historically excluded communities that generation capacity alone does not reach without dedicated distribution infrastructure.