CFE is doing about 30 days of grid maintenance in Tijuana, Rosarito and Tecate to cut power failures

Mexico’s federal power utility, the Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), began a maintenance operation on the power grid of Tijuana, Playas de Rosarito and Tecate on Saturday, Oct. 24, and the work is expected to take about 30 days, Uniradio Informa and Zeta reported on Monday. It follows a run of outages that hit homes, businesses and workplaces across Baja California in August, September and so far in October, according to Zeta.

Gerardo Óscar Santiago Ruiz, who manages CFE’s Baja California distribution division, presented the plan at a meeting led by Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda with the mayors of Tijuana, Rosarito and Tecate: Ismael Burgueño Ruiz, Rocío Adame Muñoz and Román Cota Muñoz. The plan covers preventive work and repairs across the distribution network, substations and high-voltage lines: eight subtransmission lines, five substations and 72 circuits, plus priority neighborhoods. CFE plans to deploy 248 field workers from its Norte and Noroeste divisions, its Baja California staff and contractors, per both outlets.

The governor said the goal is to protect the grid ahead of the rains El Niño is likely to bring, Uniradio reported; earlier this month Tijuana’s mayor warned of possibly “historic” rains this winter (our story). State and city public security, public works, civil protection and parks crews will support the work, including hauling away branches from the tree trimming needed around power lines.

What it means for you

• Neither report lists the neighborhoods involved or any scheduled power cuts, and neither says how residents will be notified. We’ll update this story if CFE publishes a schedule.
• You may see CFE crews and tree-trimming work around the city over the coming weeks, so give work zones room if you’re driving.
• Restaurants and downtown merchants had pressed CFE over repeated outages this fall: see our stories on Canirac and on the downtown transformer blast.