key: cord-0836676-8ov4a1l9 authors: González-López, Rafael; Ortiz-Guerrero, Natalie title: Integrated analysis of the Mexican electricity sector: Changes during the Covid-19 pandemic date: 2022-05-05 journal: The Electricity Journal DOI: 10.1016/j.tej.2022.107142 sha: 3a1c3cfb862da17d25cf44878a257d8c54f743e2 doc_id: 836676 cord_uid: 8ov4a1l9 The COVID-19 pandemic has nonlinear impacts. These impacts have collaterally affected systems such as economic and energy. The fragility of these systems has also been shown, including the electric system. In Mexico, the weakness of dependence on US fuels, of the transmission system, and the management reduction of one of the most crucial state companies in Mexico, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), was evidenced. The changes during the COVID-19 pandemic were the decrease in electric demand and consumption. This prevented the transmission nodes from saturating, although about 15% of the energy generated was still lost. Private companies, which own most of the intermittent renewable generation, and natural gas have been favored by the changes during the COVID-19 pandemic, generation sources such as wind aand solar have had a noticeable increase, because of the 2013 energy reform that created an electricity market in which private companies and the state company started to compete. On the other hand, during the 2020 winter, natural gas imported mostly from the United States had volatile prices, considerably increasing its cost, and putting the combined cycle generation at risk. This technology represents around 60% of the generation, and its primary owners are private companies. This situation led to great discussions in the current administration, thus originating an electricity reform in which the state company wants to have control again. This paper opens the debate on whether the Mexican electricity system should continue with the same generation pattern or make substantial changes that benefit the country's energy security, distributed generation, and the relationship between the state company and the Mexican electricity system. The COVID-19 pandemic changed our way of living, altering the economy and undoubtedly the energy consumption and generation patterns [1] . The situation triggered protests by national and international organizations, leaving the world in shock and making us question how everything works [2] . This pandemic has also revealed the weakness of the electrical system. In the case of Mexico, it evidenced the failures of the 2013 energy reform in which private power generators were the most benefited, the fragility of the transmission system, and the dependence on natural gas to generate electricity. The price of natural gas depends on the US market [3] , as occurred in the 2020 winter when prices were volatile, affecting electric generation in Mexico since this resource is mainly imported from the US, and as can be seen in the electricity markets of Europe, dependence on natural gas influences consumer electricity prices. The Federal Electricity Commission is critical in this analysis because it constitutes the second most crucial state-owned company in Mexico, after PEMEX (Petroleos Mexicanos), the Mexican state-owned oil company. It is also relevant because it lost importance in generation after the 2013 energy reform, as the private companies were charged with generating mainly intermittent renewable electricity. Now, in the COVID-19 pandemic, the fragility of this company and the effects of the 2013 energy reform are notorious, as can be highlighted in the content of this paper. In addition, Mexico and the United States have an important relationship on bilateral energy issues. Mexico exports crude oil and imports refined products from the United States. Finally, many energy products used in Mexico have the industry as their end-use, which plays an essential role in the maquila under the NAFTA free trade agreement [4, 5] . There are no recent articles that integrate the Mexican electrical system [6] and there have been many changes in recent periods as can be highlighted in this article. Current works talk about energy poverty [7, 8] , or are only based on the optimization of demand [9] . There is one article of the evolution of clean energies [10] , but not of the integrated electrical system as proposed in this article. Nor is there an integrated analysis carried out by the government [11] . This work goes further by integrating the entire electrical system, and explains changes occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic in this sector, both in demand and generation and their current impacts on the electrical system, which are being evaluated if there is an electricity reform. For the analysis of the evolution of the installed capacity, generation, and losses of the electricity sector during the COVID-19 pandemic, several databases from the public and private sectors were integrated. Mainly, the installed capacity data was taken from the annual publications of the National Electricity System Development Program (PRODESEN) published by the Ministry of Energy (SENER), together with other databases [11, 12, 13, 14] . Electricity generation and losses data pertains to the National Center for Energy Control (CENACE) [15, 16] . The geographical distribution of the installed capacity by control regions (Fig. 1 ) was obtained using a GIS where the distribution of the electricity generation plants was made. Statistics of annual percentage change were made for generation by technology and control regions. Sankey diagrams were made to represent the country's complexity using eSankey software. Data mining was used to collapse all the data without losing information per hour using tools from the PowerBi software. The total installed capacity in Mexico for 2020 was 88.8 GW, according to the database compiled from different sources as previously mentioned. There is no consensus in the information presented by official institutions (Secretary of energy SENER and Energy regulatory commission CRE) on annual installed capacity; therefore, the information and analysis of the data described here are approximate. This analysis on the geographical distribution of installed capacity considered eight control regions of the National Electric System (SEN), as shown in figure 1. The ORI region has the highest installed capacity in Mexico (21.2 GW), followed by the NES and OCC regions with 19.7 and 14.5 GW, respectively (Fig. 2 ). According to technology, combined-cycle plants constitute most of the installed capacity in the country with 35.3 GW, which is equivalent to 39.8%. This type of technology predominates in 5 regions (BCA, NOR, NTE, NES, and PEN). In second place are hydroelectric plants with a total installed capacity of 13.1 GW, representing 14.8% and constituting the primary power generation sources in the ORI and OCC regions. Wind and solar photovoltaic plants are the leading renewable energy resources, with installed capacities of 5.9 and 5.8 GW, respectively (6.6% and 6.5%). Turbogas plants dominate BCA and PEN regions, which are part of the total 5.6 GW installed, and correspond to 6.3%. Coal-fired plants stand out in the CEN and NES regions, with 5.5 GW (6.2%) of installed capacity. Internal combustion plants have a more significant presence in BCA, whose installed capacity throughout the country is 2 GW, with a percentage of 2.3%. There is only one nuclear plant (1.6 GW) in Mexico, located in the ORI region, constituting 1.8% of the country's installed capacity. The NES, OCC, and ORI regions have the highest number of biomass plants, whose total installed capacity is 1.2 GW (1.4%). Finally, geothermal power plants are present in the regions: BCA and OCC, whose installed capacity totals 0.9 GW and represents 1% of the total installed capacity in the country. J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f Regarding the changes of the 2018-2019 period in electricity generation ( J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f In 2020, the National Electrical System had 36 TWh in losses representing 11.6% of the total energy generated (311.5 TWh) (Fig. 5) Technical and non-technical losses due to distribution in 2020 notably decreased compared to 2019 in all regions ( Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 ). The CEN region had a reduction of 32.7% compared to the previous year; the OCC region decreased by 30.9%; the ORI region had a reduction of 28%; the NES region decreased by 29.2%, followed by the NTE region with a reduction of 25.8%. The NOR region presented a decrease of 14.3%; the PEN region had a reduction of 31.3%; and finally, the BCA region showed the most significant percentage decrease concerning the previous year represented by 33.3%. The increase in solar energy presented during these three years stands out. During these three years combined cycle was the predominant type of energy, heavy oil occupied second place in generation during 2018 and 2019, but in 2020 solar photovoltaic moved to the second place of generation, between 10 am and 5 pm, displacing heavy oil. In the same year, hydroelectric occupied second place of generation after 6 pm when it comes necessary to cover the peak of demand that solar photovoltaic cannot cover (Fig. 6, 2020) On the other hand, wind energy has displaced coal-fired energy, increasing its proportion over the years. Turbogas has also been displaced by hydroelectric, while biomass, nuclear power, and geothermal power remain the generators that dispatch the least. In 2020, the total electricity generation was 311.4 TWh (Figure 3) , of which 46.47% corresponds to the CFE (144.72 TWh). Independent Energy Producers (PIE) generated 91 TWh which constitutes 29.22%. Privates produced 74.22 TWh (23.83%), and finally PEMEX generated 1.46 TWh, equivalent to 0.47% (Fig. 7) . During the COVID-19 pandemic, installed capacity and generation of renewable energies increased (Table 1 ). In addition, generation by private producers also increased ( Figure 7 ). This brought a series of events, such as the proposal of an electricity reform, where the state seeks to participate more in the country's electricity generation again [17] . Moreover, during this period, demand decreased. Consequently, the distribution points were less saturated, and therefore there were fewer losses. Unforeseen generation peaks from renewable sources altered the generation patterns in December 2019, which produced a series of effects on the Mexican electricity system. Additionally, blackouts occurred at the beginning of 2021 because of a generation deficit caused by a winter storm in Texas, limiting access to natural gas; its price rose to 5,000% [18] . The problem of distribution losses must be seriously addressed, since they represent a large percentage of the energy generated (15% for 2019 and 11% for 2020). The government has plans to improve the existing transmission network [19], but it is time to question whether the long-distance transmission is worth it, since Mexico is a large country (1,964,375 km2), or whether efforts should focus on improving distributed generation. Similarly, combined-cycle generation represents a problem in terms of safety and dependency, since Mexico imports around 60% of the natural gas it consumes, and uses 100% of the imported gas to generate electricity. The electricity reform proposal aims to "regain control" by the State since the dispatch was based mainly on a wholesale electricity market where private companies were benefited, whose energy sources are mainly combined cycle and intermittent energies (Figure 7) . Additionally, the generation security control or system reliability was regulated by the market and not by the functions of the different sources (base-loader, peakloader, intermittent). This way of operating led to dispatch problems in 2019 and caused blackouts in the electrical system [20, 21] . In addition, the rise in natural gas prices significantly affected the Federal Electricity Company. With the electricity reform, the Energy Secretary proposes to manage the dispatch, allowing the state company to dispatch before the private energy companies and prevent the state company from having monetary losses. Also, it is urgent to rearrange the prices of services to distribute energy, since they can be reflected in the losses with severe consequences. This situation shows the necessity of a renewal or operation restructuring [19] . Generation from energies with higher emissions than renewables such as fuel oil and coal-fired plants was reduced, but the function of baseload energies was not supplied. Intermittent renewable energies in Mexico still do not have a storage system available [22] , therefore, the services to maintain the stability of the electrical system increased. Generation patterns do not match demand. Data shows that the regions that demand the most, such as the central region (Figs. 4, 5) , do not coincide with the regions that generate the most, so the amount of energy required to be transmitted is considerable. Thus, losses increase, as can be seen in the case of the central region, which presents most of them. Therefore, if losses are not managed differently, increasing renewable energies will not have a noticeable effect since, as mentioned before, more energy is lost by transmission than is generated by intermittent renewable sources. Analysis of the data shows that, with the demand reduction, losses were also reduced (from 48 TWh in 2019 to 36 TWh in 2020) due to a decrease in the saturation of the nodes (Figs. 4,5) . These non-normal events suggest whether the electrical system should continue to operate in the same way as now or perhaps it is time to analyze small, distributed energy projects that geographically match the demand instead of continuing with megaprojects, where generation and demand do not coincide, forcing energy to travel enormous distances to satisfy economic patterns. It is also time to rethink whether it is safe in energy terms to continue importing 60% of natural gas from the United States or to try to substitute this fuel to be able to generate electricity from other sources since, as mentioned in the paragraphs above, natural gas prices are volatile. We have seen the consequences of this in Europe and the United States. Therefore, this black swan shows the fragility of the Mexican electrical system. The series of phenomena that evidenced the fragility of the electrical system demands reflecting upon the distribution of electricity generation, since although private companies have overtaken the state company in electric generation, it may be time for the latter to restructure, given the problems we have seen in various electricity markets around the world such as what happened in Europe [23] . There was a reduction in demand and generation patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic. These patterns changed in quantity and sources, increasing the generation of different types of renewable energy, mainly owned by private companies. Consequently, an electricity reform proposal emerged as a counter-reform to the previous one, which mainly benefited private generators. With the decrease in demand, there was a reduction in generation and a reduction in losses during the COVID-19 pandemic. This suggests that the transmission network becomes saturated when the demand is higher than a certain level. The distribution network should be updated to reduce considerable losses (15% in 2019), or more distributed generation should be implemented. Finally, the participation of other sources in the energy matrix must be rearranged to allow a decrease in the natural gas demand since there is a high dependence on it (60%) which has increased the fragility of the National Electric System. 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Inventario de Energías Limpias Bases para un Centro Mexicano en Innovación de Energía Hidroeléctrica Apagones en México: la enorme dependencia mexicana del gas de EE.UU. que dejó al descubierto la tormenta invernal en Texas Incendio provoca apagón en la península de Yucatán; CFE restablece servicio Esto es lo que sabemos de los apagones que afectaron a México este lunes Life cycle assessment of a novel bipolar electrodialysis-based flow battery concept and its potential use to mitigate the intermittency of renewable energy generation The New York Times. Here´s What´s Behind Europe´s Surging Energy Prices Rafael González-López: design, writing, visualization, data curation, revision writing, data curation, visualization, revision This work reflects only the author's views; the funding agencies are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. The author is also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their comments which helped improve the quality of the paper Dr. Rafael González López is a Researcher at the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico. Analyst of the Mexican electrical system and hydrocarbons. He has carried out research stays at the Yale School of the Environment, and the Energy Planning Center of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (UFRJ). Currently he develops the National Energy, Environment, and Society Platform project (https://energia.conacyt.mx/planeas/). He belongs to the international group IASTE (Integrated Assessment: Sociology Technology and the Environment).Dr. Natalie Ortiz-Guerrero is a Researcher at the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT, Mexico), she works as a data architect for the National Energy, Environment and Society Platform project (https://energia.conacyt.mx/planeas/). Recently she participated in the project: Map of geothermal provinces of Mexico from the geochemistry of fluids and distribution of aquifers: tool for the exploration and development of conventional geothermal resources funded by CONACYT. ☒ The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.☐The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: