Energy Infrastructure. Nearshoring’s Silent Requirement
- Editorial
- 1 hour ago
- 5 min read
Mexico may have location, trade agreements, talent and industrial land, but no factory can operate without sufficient energy. In the competition for new investment, electricity infrastructure is moving from a supporting service to a territorial condition as decisive as water, logistics, housing and public safety.
Nearshoring Is Also Measured in Megawatts
During the early years of nearshoring, much of the conversation focused on industrial parks, highways, border crossings, incentives and workforce availability. Yet as projects move from investment announcements to actual production lines, a less visible variable emerges: the energy capacity of a territory. An automotive, electronics, aerospace, food-processing or advanced manufacturing company does not evaluate land prices alone. It needs to know how much electricity is available, when it can connect, whether its power supply can scale and how reliable that supply will remain over the next ten or twenty years.
The Mexican Association of Industrial Parks estimates that operating industrial parks currently encompass around 85 million square meters and require approximately 13,000 megawatts. By 2030, another 23 million square meters are projected, representing nearly 3,000 MW of additional demand. The challenge is not simply to generate more electricity. Mexico also needs transmission lines, distribution networks, substations, transformers, storage and connections capable of delivering that power to the places where industry will actually expand.
“Nearshoring may arrive by highway, but whether it stays —or leaves— will depend on energy."
You can listen to this article here:
Having Electricity Is Not the Same as Having Industrial Capacity
This distinction will become increasingly important for local governments. A municipality may have electricity available to virtually every household while lacking the infrastructure necessary to accommodate a major power-intensive industrial facility. Electricity coverage and the ability to support productive growth are not the same thing.
That is one of the silent risks behind Mexico’s industrial expansion: approving industrial parks, logistics corridors or manufacturing developments before confirming whether the power grid can support them. Insufficient capacity is not merely a technical inconvenience. It can delay the occupancy of industrial parks, increase project costs, constrain corporate expansion and even push an investment toward another city. For municipalities, that can mean losing jobs, suppliers, economic activity and future tax revenue.
Mexico’s federal government has already recognized the scale of the challenge. The 2025–2030 program to strengthen the National Transmission Grid calls for US$8.177 billion in investment, 275 new transmission lines and 524 substation projects. In 2026, the Ministry of Energy also presented a broader strategy to add 32 GW of generating capacity by 2030 through public, private and mixed projects. The scale of these investments confirms a basic reality: Mexico’s new industrial geography will require a new energy geography.
Energy Becomes Part of Territorial Planning
Municipalities do not operate the National Electric System or build the country’s major transmission lines. That does not mean they can remain outside the conversation. Their responsibility begins much earlier: land-use planning, industrial and urban development approvals, rights-of-way, coordination with developers and the creation of a shared strategy with state and federal authorities and energy-sector companies.
Before promoting a new industrial corridor, a local government should understand available capacity, nearby substations, planned upgrades and the demand that prospective projects could create. That information needs to be integrated into the same territorial assessment that considers water, mobility, housing, public safety, digital connectivity and workforce availability. This is particularly relevant across industrial corridors in northern, central and western Mexico, where manufacturing growth is placing simultaneous pressure on several types of infrastructure.
Investment promotion will also have to evolve. Saying that a municipality has one hundred hectares available for industry matters less than proving those hectares have energy, water, logistics and urban viability.
“Municipalities will no longer compete only to attract investment; they will compete to prove they can support it."
You can see this article here:
Clean Energy Is Also Part of the Decision
The discussion does not end with having enough megawatts. International corporations face decarbonization commitments, environmental targets and requirements throughout their supply chains. As a result, access to renewable power, storage, self-consumption generation, energy efficiency and cogeneration is becoming increasingly relevant to industrial location decisions.
In May 2026, Mexico’s Ministry of Energy introduced new mechanisms to facilitate investment in generation, storage and self-consumption as part of a strategy that aims to increase the share of renewable generation from 24% to 38% by 2030. For industrial territories, this transition can become a competitive advantage. Providing electricity will not be enough; offering reliable, scalable solutions that align with the environmental objectives of companies participating in North American supply chains will become increasingly valuable.
The Next Competition Will Be Between Prepared Territories
Nearshoring will not distribute investment automatically among every Mexican municipality. It will favor territories capable of proving that they can absorb growth without degrading public services or allowing today’s advantages to become tomorrow’s bottlenecks.
For years, municipal investment promotion revolved around location, labor, incentives and available land. The next stage requires energy, water, mobility, housing, digital infrastructure and urban development to function as parts of a single strategy. The relevant question will no longer be simply which companies can arrive, but how many the territory can actually support and what infrastructure will be required to accommodate the investment that follows the first one.
Mexico retains an extraordinary advantage through its proximity to the United States, its integration into North American production networks and its manufacturing experience. But that opportunity will not automatically become factories, jobs and economic growth. The real map of nearshoring will be drawn wherever markets, infrastructure and execution capacity converge.
Are Mexican municipalities planning today for the energy infrastructure they will need to compete for industrial investment over the next decade?
Written by: Editorial
#Nearshoring #EnergyInfrastructure #TerritorialEconomy #IndustrialDevelopment #MunicipalCompetitiveness
Sources
Mexico Ministry of Energy — Electricity Sector Development Plan (PLADESE). Medium- and long-term planning for expansion and modernization of the National Electric System. Official source
Office of the President of Mexico — National Transmission Grid Strengthening Program 2025–2030. Announced investment of US$8.177 billion, 275 new transmission lines and 524 substation projects. Official announcement
Mexico Ministry of Energy — Investment Instruments for Electricity Generation Through 2030, May 2026. Includes nearly MXN 740 billion and 32 GW of additional capacity. Official source
Mexico Ministry of Energy — General Distribution Grid Expansion and Modernization Program 2025–2039. View program
AMPIP — Industrial Parks in Mexico and the National Energy Strategy. Data on current industrial park space and electricity demand projected through 2030. View AMPIP document
AMPIP — National Industrial Parks Roadmap 2024–2030. Strategy for industrial infrastructure development amid supply-chain relocation. View AMPIP document
IMCO — Nearshoring: Priorities for Regional Development. Analysis of electricity, infrastructure and state competitiveness in the context of nearshoring. View IMCO study
IMCO — Mexico Needs Competitive Energy to Capitalize on Nearshoring. Analysis of generation, transmission, distribution and regulatory certainty required to support regionalized supply chains. View IMCO analysis
Comments