The constitutional reform presented by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador would cancel contracts under which 34 private plants sell power into the national grid. The plan declares “illegal” another 239 private plants that sell energy direct to corporate clients in Mexico.
It puts private natural gas plants almost last in line — ahead of only government coal-fired plants — for rights to sell electricity into the grid, despite the fact they produce power about 24% more cheaply. Government-run plants that burn dirty fuel oil would have preference over private wind and solar plants.
Rocio Nahle, the secretary of energy, said that means “the private firms are going to be in the market with 46% percent, they are not going to be nationalized at all, not even one screw or one nut.”
But Nahle didn’t explain what the difference is between effectively shuttering a private power plant and nationalizing it. Both would have zero value for the owner and would be impossible to move.
Seems like soc-dem brainworms where they recognize the need to avoid a privately dominated energy sector, but they're willing to hamstring cleaner sources to get there rather than just nationalize them.
It's a gargantuan mess, there's some sort self supplying scheme going on with the 239 plants where supposedly private corporations can partner up with private energy providers and legally claim that their total energy consumption is already fulfilled by these private providers, though they're connected to the same energy grid, sort of like I imagine net zero emission stuff works in the US. But it seems like originally these private plants had a limit to how many partners they were legally able to supply to, and currently they're way past this number and it's unknown whether capacity has increased or not, that is, if private energy providers are actually supplying the grid with the equivalent energy partnered corporations are consuming. Likewise Nahle is claiming foul play since the preferential scheme doesn't account for the grid infrastructure itself. I don't know more details, this is very confusing stuff, pundits on either side are being very wishy washy with details and only speak in broad generalities.
But yeah it seems that the intention is just hamstringing instead of claiming total ownership over private energy plants. To be fair right wing pundits are already calling that 54% government stake in energy production a form of communism so might as well just go full ham, but congress is partly hunged already, just getting it passed "as is" represents a very uphill battle