Mexico Electricity Billing — CFE Tariff Guide | EC.DATA

CFE is the dominant utility, CRE sets the formulas, and CENACE runs the grid. 17 divisions, a punishing 12-month demand ratchet, and 3-period TOU pricing.

Who Runs Mexico's Grid?

SENER sets policy, CRE regulates tariffs, CENACE operates the wholesale market, and CFE delivers power across 17 divisions.

Mexico regulatory chain

MEXICO ELECTRICITY REGULATORY CHAIN

Energy Ministry — National policy & planning

Tariff methodology & regulation

Grid dispatch & wholesale market

CFE Suministro Básico

Single utility — 17 divisions nationwide

Regulated customer in 1 of 17 divisions

CFE is your only billing entity — there are no alternative distributors. Your tariff is determined by voltage level, demand threshold, and which of 17 divisions your facility is in. CRE publishes rate adjustments monthly.

Post-2014 reform created three CFE subsidiaries: Generación, Transmisión, and Distribución. CENACE operates the wholesale market (MEM) with locational marginal pricing (PML). The three grid regions (SIN, BC, BCS) have independent TOU schedules.

6 Commercial/Industrial Tariff Categories

Only GDMTH, DIST, and DIT have time-of-use energy pricing. PDBT, GDBT, and GDMTO use flat rates.

TARIFF COMPLEXITY LADDER

Small commercial — No demand meter

Medium commercial — Flat energy + demand

Medium industrial — Flat energy, bimonthly

Large industrial — 3-period TOU

Heavy industrial — Subtransmission

Largest industrial — Transmission

HIGHER VOLTAGE / DEMAND →

Most commercial buildings sit on GDBT or GDMTO. Crossing the 100 kW threshold triggers GDMTH — the first tariff with TOU pricing and the aggressive 12-month demand ratchet. DAC (residential high-consumption) is excluded here.

Medición ordinaria (PDBT/GDBT/GDMTO): flat kWh rate, max-demand kW, no TOU. Medición horaria (GDMTH/DIST/DIT): 3-period TOU energy, coincident demand in Punta period, power factor adjustment. Rate tables published monthly by CRE by division.

What's Inside Your Mexican Bill

Cargo Fijo + Energía + Demanda Facturable ± Power Factor + DAP + IVA (16%).

BILL COMPOSITION — TYPICAL GDMTH CUSTOMER

IVA is a flat 16% federal tax. DAP (Derecho de Alumbrado Público) varies by municipality — from 10%. Power factor ≥ 0.90 earns a bonus; < 0.90 triggers a surcharge on the entire subtotal.

For GDMTH: Energía = Σ(kWh_periodo × tarifa_periodo). Demanda = max(actual_15min_punta, 50% × 12mo_max_punta). PF adjustment = (90/PF − 1) × subtotal. DAP is municipal (not federal), calculated as percentage of subtotal before IVA.

Mexico's 3-Period TOU Schedule

Base, Intermedia, Punta — shifts seasonally. Summer peak is 20–22h (A/C load), winter peak is 18–22h (lighting). SIN region shown.

24-hour TOU clock for Mexico

Punta rates can be 2–3× Base rates. Shifting load to Base hours (00–06h) is the single highest-impact billing optimization for GDMTH customers. BC and BCS have different TOU windows from the 15 SIN divisions.

SIN summer Punta: 20–22h. SIN winter Punta: 18–22h. BC summer Punta: 18–22h. BCS matches SIN. Intermedia fills non-Base/non-Punta hours. Sunday has no Punta period (all hours are Base or Intermedia). CRE publishes division-specific schedules monthly.

The 12-Month Demand Ratchet

One spike in July means you pay at least 50% of that spike for the next 12 months. Peak shaving is survival.

12-month demand chart

12-MONTH DEMAND PROFILE — SPIKE IN JULY

50% × 500 = 250 kW floor

Billed demand = max(actual 15-min, 50% × historical 12-month max)

Demanda Facturable = max(actual, 50% × 12-month max). A 500 kW spike means minimum 250 kW billed for 12 months. Mexico's ratchet is the most aggressive in LATAM — more punitive than Peru's 6-month avg-of-2 formula.

For medición horaria: demand is Punta-coincident (max 15-min within Punta hours only). For medición ordinaria: demand is absolute max regardless of time. Ratchet resets only after 12 consecutive months below 50% of the spike. Peak shaving ROI: typically 4–8 months payback.

The 100 kW TOU Threshold

Below 100 kW average: flat-rate GDMTO. Above: GDMTH with 3-period TOU and the 12-month demand ratchet.

GDMTO vs GDMTH at 100 kW

12-month floating average demand?

Flat energy rate (no TOU)

Simpler meter requirements

No demand ratchet on GDMTO

3-period TOU (Base/Intermedia/Punta)

12-month demand ratchet (50% of max)

Monthly billing with interval meter

Peak shaving is critical on GDMTH

GDMTO has no TOU and no demand ratchet — simpler but no optimization levers. GDMTH unlocks TOU arbitrage but exposes you to the ratchet. Crossing back under 100 kW requalifies you for GDMTO after 12 months.

The 100 kW threshold is based on 12-month floating average demand (not peak). CFE automatically reclassifies. GDMTO is bimonthly billing. GDMTH is monthly. For qualified users (> 1 MW), the Ley de la Industria Eléctrica allows direct participation in MEM wholesale market via a qualified supplier.

Power Factor Bonus & Penalty

PF ≥ 0.90 earns a bill discount. PF < 0.90 triggers a surcharge on the entire subtotal. At PF 0.80, you pay a 12.5% penalty.

Power factor bonus/penalty formula

POWER FACTOR BONUS / PENALTY

Adjustment = (90 / PF − 1) × 100%

Applied to entire subtotal (before IVA)

Bonus — 5.3% discount

Neutral — no adjustment

Significant surcharge

A capacitor bank to correct PF from 0.82 to 0.95 typically pays for itself in 3–6 months. The bonus at 0.95 is a 5.3% discount on the entire subtotal — every month, permanently.

CFE measures PF as the average over the billing period using kWh and kVArh totalizers. Formula: PF = kWh / √(kWh² + kVArh²). Adjustment = (90/PF − 1) × 100% applied to subtotal. Capacitor bank sizing: kVAR = kW × (tan(acos(PF_current)) − tan(acos(PF_target))).

CRE — Comisión Reguladora de Energía

Published tariff schedules, rate methodology, and division-specific rate tables for CFE regulated tariffs.

CENACE — Centro Nacional de Control de Energía

Wholesale market operation, locational marginal pricing, and grid dispatch data for the Mexican interconnected system.

Mexico Electricity Billing — CFE Tariff Guide

Understanding Mexico's CFE electricity tariffs for commercial and industrial consumers. Covers GDMTH, PDBT, and industrial rate structures including demand charges and time-of-use periods.

Key Tariff Categories

• PDBT — Small commercial tariff (up to 25 kW demand)
• GDMTH — Medium voltage time-of-use tariff for commercial/industrial
• GDMTO — Medium voltage ordinary tariff
• DIT — Large industrial time-of-use tariff
• DIST — Subtransmission industrial tariff

Time-of-Use Periods

• Punta — peak hours with highest energy and demand rates
• Intermedia — shoulder hours with moderate rates
• Base — off-peak hours with lowest energy rates
• Periods vary by region and season (summer vs winter schedules)

Billing Mexico in practice

Mexican CFE tariffs (GDMTH, GDMTO, DAC, etc.) carry demand charges, ToU windows, and a power-factor penalty band. EC.Bills models the full CFE tariff library and re-bills meter telemetry against it for verification.

How EC.DATA operationalises Billing Mexico

EC.DATA's tariff library models Billing Mexico as a structured object: energy charges, demand charges, time-of-use windows, ratchets, power-factor penalties, taxes, and surcharges. EC.Bills applies the model to meter telemetry and re-issues the bill — the partner can show the customer the math line by line.

Tariff updates are tracked against the regulator's publication date inside EC.GAIA Tariff Analyzer, so partners are notified the moment a new tariff is gazetted and can re-quote affected customers before the change hits the next invoice.

Common pitfalls when working with Billing Mexico

Billing Mexico reconciliation problems usually originate at the tariff model, not the meter.

• Tariff updates that take effect mid-cycle must be split-billed correctly; EC.Bills handles this automatically but only if the effective date is loaded.
• Demand windows defined by the utility rarely align to calendar months — verify the demand peak is being captured against the utility's window, not yours.
• Reactive-power penalty bands are the most-missed line item in re-bills; EC.Bills surfaces them by default.

Where Billing Mexico connects across EC.DATA

Billing Mexico touches every layer of the EC.DATA stack: telemetry capture in EC.Node; visualisation and alerting in EC.EMS with EC.Alerts; tariff translation in EC.Bills; savings verification in EC.GAIA; and field-device fleet governance in EC.IoT. Solution work originates in EC.Solution Design Studio; partner and customer training live in EC.Academy.

Frequently asked questions about Billing Mexico

How does EC.DATA expose Billing Mexico to partners?

Billing Mexico is surfaced through EC.Node telemetry capture, normalised into the EC.DATA tag schema, then made available across EC.EMS dashboards, EC.Alerts notifications, EC.Bills tariff models, and EC.GAIA savings reports — one source of truth across every module.

Do I need a separate license to access Billing Mexico?

No. Billing Mexico is part of the core EC.DATA platform; partners get it as part of their standard licence and white-label it under their own brand for their customers.

Where do I learn more about Billing Mexico on EC.DATA?

Start with the EC.Academy track this page belongs to, then explore the related EC.DATA platform modules linked above. The EC.DATA changelog announces new capabilities and the EC.Academy session catalogue tracks every recorded session.

How EC.DATA applies this in production

The concepts in this lesson are not theoretical — they are operationalised every day inside the EC.DATA platform across deployments in 10+ countries on 3 continents. The module most directly tied to this track is EC.EMS, working alongside EC.Node and EC.GAIA to translate the underlying physics, protocols, and methodology into a working production system.

Every reading in EC.DATA flows through the same lifecycle: telemetry is captured at the meter or sensor, normalised by the EC.Node edge gateway (which speaks Modbus RTU/TCP, BACnet, OPC-UA, MQTT and pulse counting natively), buffered locally for offline resilience, then delivered to the cloud where EC.EMS stores it as 1-minute resolution time-series. From there, EC.Bills reconciles metered kWh against the utility invoice, EC.Billing allocates consumption to tenants or cost centres, EC.Alerts watches for anomalies, EC.PQ scrutinises waveform quality, and EC.GAIA applies machine learning for forecasting and root-cause analysis.

That integration is what differentiates EC.DATA from the patchwork of disconnected tools most facilities run today. Because every module shares the same data warehouse and the same role-based permission layer, a finding in one module is immediately actionable in another — a tariff change in EC.Bills can adjust demand-alert thresholds in EC.Alerts, a setpoint override in EC.BMS is automatically measured for energy impact in EC.EMS, and an IPMVP baseline is established once and reused across reports forever.

The team behind EC.DATA — described in more depth on the Who We Are page — combines former Fortune 500 energy consultants, field commissioning engineers, and software developers, with a deliberate hiring policy that requires every senior product role to have prior experience on the customer side of an energy programme. The platform is what we wish had existed when we ran those programmes ourselves; the academy is the public-domain version of the training material we built internally to bring new hires up to speed.

If you want to see the platform in action, the free assessment, the savings calculator, and the Solution Design Studio are open without an account; the partner programme is the route in for ESCOs, facility-management firms, commissioning agents, and utilities that want to deliver EC.DATA under their own brand.