Diana Gante / Reform Agency

Tuesday December 19, 2023 | 7:45 p.m.

Mexico.- Mexico will once again face energy arbitrage from Canadian companies.

These are the companies Caisse de Dépôt Etplacement du Québec (CDPQ) and CDP Groupe Infrastructures, which are dedicated to the production of renewable energy.

On December 15, the request for registration of arbitration proceedings against Mexico under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) was submitted.

The rules applicable to arbitration are those of the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

The status of the procedure always appears as pending.

La Caisse has been present in Mexico since 2015 and invests approximately 5 billion US dollars there.

In 2017, the company, together with CKD Infraestructura México, acquired 80% of the assets of eight renewable energy projects on Mexican soil, five wind farms and three solar parks, with a total capacity of 1,712 megawatts, which belonged to the company. Enel green energy.

In this transaction, Enel remained with 20 percent of the project portfolio and as operator of the plants.

During the six-year term of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the energy sector, particularly renewable production, was affected by the policy implemented in this area.

Initially, new authorizations for the installation of parks began to be restricted, changes in the order of electricity delivery, which were carried out with a sense of economic criteria, which placed renewable energies to be the first to sell their energy, but with the change, fossil fuels and power plants were favored.

This caused a wave of protections from companies that saw their operations affected and even a consultation procedure was launched to give way to a panel between Mexico and its trading partners in the United States and Canada according to the T-MEC rules.