Collaboration, consensus, and coordinated work among the branches of government guarantee the right to access energy at affordable prices, said Raúl Talán Ramírez, general director of the Trust for Electricity Savings (FIDE), during the extraordinary meeting of the Energy Commission of the Chamber of Deputies. He congratulated the members and made the following comments on two of their initiatives.
Regarding the initiative to create the Center for Sustainable Energy Analysis and Development Studies (CEADES), Dr. Raúl Talán shared his personal experience related to a comparative study of energy reforms in Mexico and the United States, which he will soon publish.
For this, he consulted documents from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which works exclusively for the United States Congress, developing legal and policy analyses for the committees and members of the House and Senate, regardless of party affiliation.
Based on this experience, he believes it makes a lot of sense to have an organization of this nature in Mexico for the energy sector.
In relation to the initiative to reform and add to Article 17 of the Electric Industry Law to raise Distributed Generation (DG) from 0.5 megawatts (MW) to 1 MW, he highlighted that: “... the Electric Industry Law focuses on creating and consolidating a wholesale electricity market for capacities over 1 MW, leaving power plants with capacities below 0.5 MW exempt from requiring permits, thus the range between 0.5 and 1 MW is not properly addressed in the current legislation.”
In addition, Engineer Talán pointed out the need to address the technical limitations to expand the DG capacity range. He mentioned that, according to opinions gathered from experts, it can be concluded that extending the DG threshold to 1 MW of power or capacity, in the vast majority of cases, would not affect the stability of distribution networks.
Therefore, he indicated that a case-by-case review of requests between 0.5 and 1 MW by the National Center for Energy Control (CENACE) and CFE Distribution, “... would, in our opinion, be sufficient to grant the necessary authorizations,” commented the head of FIDE. He concluded that this proposal to expand DG is highly sensible from both an economic and social perspective, as it would significantly increase the percentage of renewable energy in the national electrical system, contribute to meeting international commitments on climate change, and provide a boost to small and medium-sized national enterprises.
The FIDE director concluded that both initiatives, due to their importance and the enormous benefits they would bring to the country's energy and environmental policy, will surely be taken up in the next Legislature.
BY MANUEL RODRÍGUEZ GONZÁLEZ
FEDERAL DEPUTY
PRESIDENT OF THE ENERGY COMMISSION OF THE LXV LEGISLATURE OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES OF THE H. CONGRESS OF THE UNION
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