An integrated analysis of the Mexican electrical system’s metabolic pattern and industry sector in the energy transition

The electricity system and the industrial sector interrelate on the path to decarbonization. The study addresses the drivers and environmental pressure within the industrial sector on the National Electricity System (NES). This article aims to characterize the metabolic pattern of the NES and the industrial sector using the Multiscale Integrated Analysis of Social and Ecological Metabolism (MuSIASEM) from a bioeconomic perspective to identify fields of opportunity in the regulatory policy instruments. A set of extensive and intensive variables (2019) on energy, production factors, and emissions was used at different hierarchical levels based on both subsectors. Our results show that the NES used primary energy sources (PES) and secondary energy carriers to fulfill its functions, of which 72% were domestic sources and 28% were imported. México imported 79.5% of the natural gas (NG) for electricity generation. However, there are favorable conditions for renewable PES to increase the installed capacity of solar plants between 3 and 4 orders of magnitude and 2–3 in wind power from the current capacity. NES's energy consumption per hour of human time is 17,388 MJ/h, with 65% being the heat equivalent to a total energy input consumed of 2139 PJ/y. Public plants contributed 43.7% to the generation, and the independent and self-supply producers the rest. End uses needed the supply of 69.3% of electricity from baseload plants. Sixty-three percent of the metabolic pattern of the industrial sector is based on heat and fuel processes, which depend on NG imports. The NES is reorganizing and recovering its energy autonomy.