Mexico.
Wholesale design: Mercado Eléctrico Mayorista with day-ahead and real-time energy/ancillary-service co-optimization, an annual ex-post capacity balance, and conditional competitive reliability-acquisition mechanisms effective from April 2026.
Energy in CENACE Mexico trades in 2 layers: Mercado del Día en Adelanto and Mercado de Tiempo Real. Participation in Mercado de Tiempo Real is mandatory. Scheduling and settlement, where the official sources state them, are in the table below.
| Layer | Scheduling | Settlement |
|---|---|---|
| Mercado del Día en Adelanto | hourly day-ahead commitment and schedules | local marginal energy prices and zonal ancillary-service marginal prices in the two-settlement market |
| Mercado de Tiempo Real (mandatory) | five-minute security-constrained economic dispatch with ancillary-service assignments established on the applicable real-time scheduling cycle | real-time local marginal energy prices and zonal ancillary-service marginal prices; deviations from day-ahead positions are settled in the two-settlement framework |
CENACE Mexico has 10 ancillary-service products, across 5 families — automatic frequency restoration, replacement reserve, reactive power & voltage, black start & restoration and emergency control: Dead-Bus Connection, Emergency Start, Island Operation, 10-Minute Non-Spinning Reserve, 10-Minute Spinning Reserve, Reactive Power / Voltage Support, Reactive Reserve / Voltage Control, Secondary Frequency Regulation Reserve, and 2 more. Response timing, direction and eligibility for each are in the cards below, as the official sources state them.
Facts below are stated as the official sources state them. A missing line means the source does not state that value — never that the value is zero.
Correct frequency and scheduled interchange deviations through centralized automatic generation control.
Provide qualified non-synchronized contingency reserve and contribute to operating and supplemental requirements.
Provide synchronized contingency reserve and contribute to higher-tier operating and supplemental requirements.
Provide non-synchronized capacity for the supplemental-reserve requirement after faster reserve categories.
Provide synchronized capacity for the supplemental-reserve requirement after faster reserve categories.
Inject or absorb reactive power to maintain local voltage.
Keep reactive capability available to control system voltage.
Energize and connect to a de-energized bus as part of transmission-system restoration.
Start generation under emergency or restoration conditions without relying on ordinary market commitment.
Operate a facility or electrical area in an islanded condition to preserve service and aid restoration.
No central capacity market. CENACE Mexico has 2 capacity/adequacy arrangements — Mercado para el Balance de Potencia and Mecanismos de Adquisición por Confiabilidad — and they work differently.
The MBP balances residual capacity obligations and uncommitted capacity after bilateral Electricity Hedge Contracts. It calculates zonal demand/offer curves and settlement prices but is not a forward capacity auction.
The framework was effective from 2026-04-03. CENACE had issued and reported case-specific 2026 reliability-acquisition solicitations for energy and associated products in the Peninsular-Tabasco region by the cutoff. This does not convert the annual ex-post MBP into an auction and does not establish a standing capacity market.
case-specific competitive reliability solicitation; the framework itself does not establish a recurring forward capacity-auction calendar
Current as of · from the Global Electricity Market Catalogue v1.2.0 (compiled to , CC BY 4.0). Facts belong to the linked official authorities; verify the current rules before design or bidding decisions.
The markets index holds the full set. For what the grid demands of a battery here, see the grid-code ride-through atlas.