ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to analyze the political, economic, technical, administrative, and institutional factors that have determined the development and planning of the Mexican electricity industry, with special reference to the 1970s and the early 1980s. Electricity rates have played an important role in the electric subsector. In Mexico the manufacture of equipment required by the electricity subsector is fundamentally the concern of the capital goods Industry. Federal Electricity Commission and Central Light and Power Company constitute what is referred to as the national electricity subsector and are an entity providing a public service, that is, the country's electricity supply. In 1937 the whole of Mexico's electricity grid was under the control of the Mexican Light and Power Company, Ltd., the Companla Eleectrlca de Chapala, and the American and Foreign Power Company, all foreign-owned. Fuel productivity increased mainly because of the new thermoelectric plants, which had better design specifications, and because of improved plant efficiency in energy conversion.
