Resources · Glossary
Glossary of power, project finance and regulation
The terms we use on this site and in our contracts, with their Spanish equivalent. Legal definitions cite the article of Mexican law that supports them.
Contracts and finance
| Term | In Spanish | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| SPV (special purpose vehicle) | Sociedad de propósito específico | A company created for a single project. It owns the plant, signs the contracts and raises debt and equity, kept separate from its shareholders’ own. It is what banks and funds require to finance a project. SPV structure. |
| PPA (power purchase agreement) | Contrato de compra de energía | A long-term contract under which the customer pays for the energy it receives at an agreed price, without investing in the plant. The plant belongs to the project company. |
| Energy as a service | Energía como servicio | Instead of paying per kWh, the customer pays a fee for available capacity, availability and operation, with performance indicators set in the contract. |
| BOOT | BOOT (construir, poseer, operar y transferir) | Build, own, operate, transfer: the project company builds the plant, owns it and operates it for the contract term; at the end, the plant transfers to the customer. |
| Financial close | Cierre financiero | The point at which debt and equity agreements are signed and the conditions to draw funds are met. It usually requires permits, land and the energy contract to be in place. |
| Payment trust | Fideicomiso de fuente de pago | A trust that receives the payments under the energy contract. It uses them first to service the debt and then for the other items, in the agreed order. |
| Mixed scheme (with CFE) | Esquema mixto | A generation project in which CFE holds at least 54% (Electricity Sector Law art. 40 sec. I; of the common capital stock under the Regulations, art. 85), with a term of up to 30 years (Regulations, art. 73). CFE mixed schemes. |
Project and operations
| Term | In Spanish | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| EPC | Ingeniería, procura y construcción | Engineering, procurement and construction contract with a single accountable party, usually at a fixed price and schedule, through commissioning. |
| COD (commercial operation date) | Fecha de operación comercial | The date on which, after testing, the plant starts delivering energy under contract and earning revenue. |
| O&M (operations and maintenance) | Operación y mantenimiento | Day-to-day operation, preventive and corrective maintenance and reporting for the plant over the life of the contract. Operations and maintenance. |
| Availability | Disponibilidad | The share of time the plant is able to deliver energy. In O&M and energy-as-a-service contracts, it is a contractual commitment. |
| Bridge power | Energía puente | Temporary on-site generation that supplies the load until the grid connection or the permanent plant is complete. Bridge power. |
| Mission critical | Misión crítica | A facility that cannot tolerate interruptions, such as a data center, a telecom hub or an airport. Its power is designed with redundancy: UPS, emergency generation and redundant distribution. |
| Tier | Tier | The Uptime Institute classification of a data center’s redundancy and fault tolerance, from Tier I to Tier IV. |
Technology
| Term | In Spanish | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| BESS | Sistema de almacenamiento en baterías | Battery energy storage system, with its inverters and control system. It stores energy, solar for example, and delivers it when needed. |
| Cogeneration (CHP) | Cogeneración | Production of electricity and useful heat (steam or hot water) from a single fuel, recovering the heat a conventional power plant wastes. Cogeneration. |
| Trigeneration (CCHP) | Trigeneración | Cogeneration that also produces cooling: the recovered heat drives an absorption chiller that makes chilled water. |
Regulation
Mexico’s Electricity Sector Law (LSE) and other rules| Term | In Spanish | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| Self-consumption | Autoconsumo | Output of a plant of 0.7 MW or more used for the on-site needs of the holder of the generation permit. It can be islanded or grid-connected; between 0.7 and 20 MW, grid-connected self-consumption may follow a simplified permit process (LSE art. 30). |
| Islanded self-consumption | Autoconsumo aislado | The plant is not connected to the National Transmission Grid or the General Distribution Networks, and its entire output is consumed on site, within the private network (LSE art. 31). |
| Grid-connected self-consumption | Autoconsumo interconectado | The plant produces for on-site consumption and is connected to the grid. Surplus energy can only be sold to CFE, with a valid permit and interconnection agreement; an intermittent plant that injects energy must have its own storage backup or pay for it (LSE art. 32). |
| Distributed generation | Generación distribuida | Generation in plants under 0.7 MW connected to a distribution circuit with a high concentration of load centers. It is an exempt generator (LSE art. 25). |
| Exempt generator | Generadora exenta | A plant under 0.7 MW, which needs no generation permit. Generation used only for emergencies or outages needs no permit either (LSE art. 19). |
| CNE | Comisión Nacional de Energía | National Energy Commission. It grants generation permits (LSE art. 151) and issues the electricity sector’s administrative rules. Permitting and development. |
| CENACE | Centro Nacional de Control de Energía | National Energy Control Center. A decentralized public agency in charge of operational control of the National Electric System, operation of the Wholesale Electricity Market and access to the grid (LSE art. 123). Grid interconnection. |
| CFE | Comisión Federal de Electricidad | Federal Electricity Commission, a state-owned public company. It is the only buyer of grid-connected self-consumption surplus (LSE art. 32) and holds at least 54% in mixed schemes (LSE art. 40). |
| MIA | Manifestación de impacto ambiental | Environmental impact statement: it describes a project’s potential effects on ecosystems and the measures to prevent and mitigate them. It is filed with SEMARNAT to obtain the environmental impact authorization (LGEEPA arts. 28 and 30). |
| MISSE | Manifestación de impacto social del sector energético | Energy-sector social impact statement, governed by SENER’s General Administrative Provisions on the Energy Sector Social Impact Statement (DOF, February 16, 2026). Environmental and social. |
Electricity Sector Law (Ley del Sector Eléctrico), DOF March 18, 2025, arts. 19, 25, 30, 31, 32, 40, 123 and 151. LSE Regulations, DOF October 3, 2025, arts. 73 and 85. General Law of Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection (LGEEPA), arts. 28 and 30. SENER, DOF February 16, 2026.
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