I have no issue with this, In my opinion I would call it progress, since both the state of Texas and Mexico could equally benefit. Northern Mexico Power Plants are mostly natural gas which not the best is better than the coal plants Texas wants to build.
On the other hand, the ?North American Union? crowd may want to add another layer of foil.
Dallas Morning New
Texas, Mexico link electric grids
Texas plugs its grid into Mexico's so generation companies can buy and sell electricity
07:43 AM CDT on Wednesday, September 19, 2007
By ELIZABETH SOUDER / The Dallas Morning News
esouder@dallasnews.com
Texas and Mexico are tying their electricity grids together to allow commercial power trade, but it's not obvious which way the juice might flow.
As a brand-new interconnection fires up next month, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas is testing whether the grid it operates north of the Rio Grande can handle commercial transactions with Mexico.
Three small interconnections between the grids are now used strictly for emergencies.Northern Mexico generates more electricity than the region needs, and experts say it can do so at a lower cost than the U.S.
That's an argument for Texas importing Mexican power. But the electricity could eventually flow the other direction, as Mexico's demand for power soars.
Supplying demand on either side of the Rio Grande could present a business opportunity for power generation companies. But there are a couple of niggling issues that could disrupt the whole idea: environmental worries and federal jurisdiction.
As many Texans become more sensitive to environmental issues, the concept of importing electricity from a country that isn't bound to U.S. environmental rules might rankle.
Even though Mexico signed the Kyoto Protocol, designed to bind countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the country hasn't set targets for itself. The United States has not signed the treaty.
Plus, Texas is the only state that has its own electricity grid, operated independently of the rest of the country. Trading power with Mexico could invite the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to step in, something Texas policymakers have managed to avoid.
3 interconnections
Two Texas companies built new ties with Mexico this year, bringing the total number of interconnections to three. Those ties are meant to allow juice to flow if either Texas or Mexico needs power in an emergency.
Sharyland Utilities LP, owned by the Hunter Hunt family of Dallas, wants to use its tie at McAllen for commercial power transactions. The company will officially open the interconnection next month. Mr. Hunt hasn't said which way the electricity might flow.
ERCOT has begun testing whether its system can facilitate international power transactions all the time.
"There's been a request to transact," said Bill Bojorquez, vice president for system planning for ERCOT. "I don't really have specifics; [if it would be] purchases or sales or both. There've just been calls of interest ? 'What do we do to get commercial transactions?' "
Electric Transmission Texas LLC, a joint venture of American Electric Power Inc. and MidAmerican Energy Holdings Inc., has already used its new interconnection in Laredo for emergency power trades. Laredo had to import power from Mexico a few months ago to deal with an emergency spike in demand, and Texas has sent power to Mexico during emergencies as well.
No power company has asked to use the Laredo tie for commercial transactions, but AEP would allow commercial trades if power companies want them, said spokeswoman Melissa McHenry.
Both Sharyland and Electric Transmission Texas asked federal regulators to waive any claims to jurisdiction over the interconnections to Mexico. Federal regulators haven't ruled yet.
Increasing demand
Demand for power on both sides of the border is increasing. While ERCOT expects Texas' electricity demand to rise 11 percent by 2012, Mexico projects its demand to rise about 60 percent by 2015, according to a study last year by Mexico's secretary of energy.
Mr. Bojorquez said northeast Mexico currently has excess power generation capacity, after building some natural gas plants along the border. So it's possible that some power traders would like to import electricity to Texas. But the situation might not last.
Texas' deregulated wholesale market attracts billions in power plant investment for every type of fuel. Some of that power could be sold across the border.
Mexico remains a regulated utility monopoly, and building a plant involves heavy dealings with unions, said George Baker, research director for Houston consultancy Energia.com.
"They've got a very aggressive and powerful union that really costs them a lot," he said. "So if you import electricity, one of the things you get from that is that you don't have to hire a new body."
That leaves the question of whether trading power with Mexico would promote cleaner technology.
It's becoming more difficult to build coal-fired power plants in Texas because of environmental concerns, although a few coal plants are under construction.
While there might be some willingness in Mexico to support renewable power, there hasn't been as much effort to build cleaner plants as in other countries that signed the Kyoto treaty.
Mexico had 88 megawatts of installed wind power capacity in 2006, and Texas had 2,370 megawatts of wind capacity, according to the Global Wind Energy Council.
"If you mean movement of the lips, you can say there's been considerable movement in the past few years," Mr. Baker said of Mexico.
