Ministry of Energy publishes amendment on the Agreement on Clean Energy Certificates in the Federal Official Gazette

On 28 October 2019, the Ministry of Energy (“SENER”) published in the Federal Official Gazette (“DOF”) an “Agreement that modifies the Guidelines establishing the criteria for granting Clean Energy Certificates and the requirements for their acquisition” (the “Previous Agreement”).

The intention of the Previous Agreement was for legacy power plants, that belong exclusively to the Federal Electricity Commission (“CFE”) and were installed and constructed before 11 August 2014, to receive Clean Energy Certificates ("CELs") without the need to increase their generation of clean energy. Such legacy power plants will be entitled to receive CELs for a period of up to twenty years.

The objective of these changes is to allow projects to receive CELs without necessarily increasing the production of clean energy. The twenty-year period will begin after the publication of the energy reform package, assuming that the source of generation for all legacy power plants will be clean energies. It is also important to note that a large part of the legacy power plants belong to the different CFE subsidiary commercial companies that represent an important part of the total installed capacity in Mexico.

On 10 December 2019, SENER published in the DOF an “Agreement amending the second transitory of the Previous Agreement that modifies the Guidelines establishing the criteria for granting Clean Energy Certificates and the requirements for their acquisition” (the “Current Agreement”).

The Current Amendment outlines that the CELs granted in favour of legacy power plants may only accredit the production of electric energy based on sources of clean energy as of the entry into force of the Current Agreement, so they will not have any effect vis-à-vis acts carried out prior to that date.

The objective of the Current Agreement is to exclude clean power plants from the scope of the second transitory article of the Previous Agreement, so that only the legacy power plants fall within its remit.

Adrian Ortiz de Elguea Leiva is a contributing author.