Mexico, U.S. Sign Document to Promote Reliability of Interconnected Grids

The U.S. Secretary of Energy and Mexico’s Secretary of Energy Pedro Joaquin Coldwell have signed a non-binding foundational document that will support a continued effort by both countries to assure reliability of the increasingly interconnected American and Mexican electricity grids. U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Roberta Jacobson and President and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Gerry Cauley witnessed the signing. Federal Energy Regulatory Commision (FERC) Chairman Norman Bay, Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) Chairman Guillermo Ignacio Garcia Alcocer and National Center for Energy Control (CENACE) Director Eduardo Meraz Ateca also signed.

“The United States and Mexico have a long-standing energy partnership that is being strengthened further as Mexico advances its impressive energy sector reform,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. “Electricity system integration will help both countries achieve economic, energy and environmental goals, and these agreed upon principles will help assure reliability and resilience.”

The principles help carry out one of the recommendations in the recently released Quadrennial Energy Review (QER) 1.2: “Transforming the Nation’s Electricity Sector.” Both QER 1.1 and 1.2 have chapters on North American energy integration. The U.S. and Canadian electricity systems are well integrated to mutual benefit, with NERC playing a key role in maintaining reliability.

The U.S. and Mexican electricity systems are on a path to a similar level of integration and mutual economic benefit. The developments are taking place at a time of change in the electricity sector, with the increased convergence of electricity and information technology infrastructures providing both opportunities for significant value creation and needs for technology, policy and regulatory solutions to reliability and security challenges.

These issues are addressed in-depth in QER 1.2, which offers six recommendations for enhanced North American electricity integration.