CFE acknowledges transmission failures after blackout affecting 745,533 users

The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) acknowledged on October 7, 2026 persistent failures in the transmission network of the Yucatán Peninsula. The blackout of August 31 lasted seven hours and left 745,533 users without service in Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Campeche and Chiapas, according to El Economista.

President Claudia Sheinbaum and CFE general director Emilia Calleja Alor said at that day's press conference that the company will reinforce the peninsula's transmission and distribution system and maintain a permanent tree-trimming program, according to El Financiero. Sheinbaum attributed the largest outage to a failure in a transmission tower and said that branch growth driven by the region's humidity can leave an entire neighborhood without power. The peninsula is also where the grid intersects with gas supply: nearly 60% of the country's electricity is generated with natural gas, much of it imported from the United States, according to Diario de Yucatán.

On the supply side, six combined-cycle plants came into operation between 2025 and 2026, including Elvia Carrillo Puerto in Yucatán, with 499 megawatts (MW), and CFE reports 58 generation projects with more than 10,400 MW, as reported by Diario de Yucatán. In parallel, the Cuxtal pipeline, which will carry natural gas from Tabasco to the peninsula, is moving forward. The peninsula operates on a grid that also serves the tourism hubs of Cancún and the Riviera Maya, and CFE deployed crews from other regions of the country for modernization and maintenance work. The impact is already being measured in local activity: around 70% of restaurants in northern Mérida felt the outages and nearly 20% reported losses from spoiled food and damaged equipment, according to Canirac Yucatán cited by El Financiero.

On October 7, the Congress of Yucatán published in the state's Official Gazette the agreement asking CFE to invest in and expand the grid where demand is growing. The points to watch are the resources for the state electricity system in the 2027 Budget and the construction progress reports that Congress asked to be made public.

This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence based on verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.