Mexico's CFE Plans to Increase Power Generation Capacity by 51% by 2030

en.Wedoany.com Reported - The Federal Electricity Commission of Mexico (Comisión Federal de Electricidad, CFE) recently released its 2026–2030 development plan, proposing to increase its power generation capacity from 46,600 MW in 2025 to 70,700 MW by 2030, adding 24,100 MW. The plan, submitted at the direction of President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, marks the first time the Mexican government has publicly disclosed CFE's overall development roadmap for the coming years.

This document replaces CFE's previous business plan and, for the first time, incorporates and publicly discloses the company's growth targets in recent years, new generation capacity, projected investment scale, renewable energy integration arrangements, financing sources, market outlook forecasts, and financial performance expectations through 2030. CFE's share of generation in Mexico's National Electric System (Sistema Eléctrico Nacional, SEN) will rise from the current 43% to 53%; when including generation from plants under Fonadin, its national share will reach 62%.

Under the plan, 15,200 MW of renewable and non-polluting emission technology capacity will be added between 2026 and 2030, accounting for 82% of the 18,600 MW of planned new capacity during the period. As a result, the share of renewables in CFE's generation mix will rise from 21% in 2025 to 34% in 2030. The National Electric System's clean generation target is to reach 38% by 2030, up from 21% in 2025, with CFE serving as the key implementing entity in achieving this goal.

To fund the expansion plan, CFE intends to adopt a hybrid financing approach that combines the company's own resources with private capital, market instruments, and the Fibra E mechanism earmarked for transmission projects, thereby avoiding concentrating all financing needs on a single source while expanding investment capacity.

CFE stated that another key component of the plan is the inclusion of forecasts for expected market behavior and the company's financial performance, enabling the relationship between new capacity, investment, and planned financing sources to be tracked across the development trajectory of the coming years. The Mexican government said that publishing the plan represents a step in its transparency and long-term planning policies, providing greater certainty regarding CFE's direction through 2030.

As of the end of 2025, CFE held approximately 51% of the installed capacity of Mexico's National Electric System, or 46,560 MW out of 91,073 MW, and its generation accounted for 42.7% of total electricity; when including the methane-fired combined-cycle plants acquired by Fonadin from Iberdrola in 2024, this share rises to 57.2%. CFE operates 111,195 km of transmission lines and 908,195 km of distribution networks, serving 49.8 million customers nationwide.

CFE is a social public enterprise exclusively owned by the federal government, with legal personality and its own assets, and enjoys technical, operational, and managerial autonomy under the law. Its published operational objectives cover the following areas: expanding, modernizing, and improving the operational and maintenance efficiency of the national transmission network and the general distribution network to meet electricity demand and reduce supply costs while maintaining system reliability and advancing smart grid development; maintaining the company's majority participation in national power generation; reducing CO2 emission intensity and modernizing generation processes through sustainable technologies; implementing regulatory management to provide fair conditions for wholesale electricity market participants; enhancing user satisfaction; and strengthening financial profitability and cash flow to ensure the availability of resources for operations and investment.