The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and the data center industry agreed on a new work plan to address electrical requirements of 1705 MW associated with projects in different stages of development in Mexico .
The agreement was reached with the Mexican Association of Data Centers (MEXDC) and seeks to move from general requests to a specific review of each initiative, analyzing location, required power, deadlines and conditions of the available electrical infrastructure .
The goal is to identify which projects can leverage existing capacity and which will require additional reinforcements in transmission or distribution.
To accelerate this process, CFE and MEXDC will form specialized working groups that will provide technical follow-up to the projects and allow for a more detailed evaluation of connection alternatives.
The scheme also includes three pilot projects in Development Hubs , with the aim of testing this coordination model in specific cases and then replicating it in other regions.
The discussion gains relevance due to the scale of the new demand.
The 1705 MW presented by the industry shows the growing importance of data center growth within Mexican electricity planning, especially given the advance of new investments associated with artificial intelligence, digital services and computing capacity.
From general requirements to specific projects
The new methodology aims to reduce one of the main risks for this type of investment: that the availability of power and network does not keep pace with the development of the projects.
Until now, most of the sector's needs were analyzed in aggregate. With the new system, CFE will be able to review each development individually and define the necessary technical solutions to address it.
This will allow for anticipating infrastructure expansions, reinforcing specific nodes, and making better use of available capacity where connection conditions already exist.
The coordination also seeks to provide greater visibility into development times, a factor especially relevant for data centers, where energy availability can directly influence investment and location decisions.
The agreement is also part of a broader strategy by the Mexican government to attract capital for technological infrastructure and support the expansion of new large-scale cargo.
With 1705 MW already identified , the challenge now is to convert those requirements into viable connections and define what part of the new demand can be absorbed by the current network and where it will be necessary to expand the electrical infrastructure.