Coal power plant in Michoacan, Mexico. Approximate location 17.9837, -102.1154.
CoalMichoacanMexicosubcriticalCO₂ modelled
Plutarco Elías Calles (Petacalco) is a 2,778 MW coal power station in Michoacan, Mexico. It is operated by CFE. Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 3.5 million homes (estimated). It ranks #1 of 366 Mexico power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 1993, it is around 33 years old — long-established. Its modelled annual emissions are 6,926,400 t CO₂/yr (Climate TRACE), equivalent to about 1.6 million cars driven for a year. In context, coal supplies about 3.0% of Mexico's electricity; the national grid averages 474 gCO₂/kWh (25.9% low-carbon) (2025).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id MEX0001765.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The capacity and/or fuel fields on this page include a source-backed provenance label from GEM, an official registry, Wikidata, OSM, or a cross-source match.
capacity: GEM tracker 2026 (location L100000103031); fuel: WRI source-record fuel
Technically it is described as subcritical. Coal plants burn pulverised coal to raise high-pressure steam for a turbine; they run as baseload but are the most carbon-intensive mainstream source and the first targeted for retirement or efficiency retrofits.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
This facility's annual emissions are roughly equivalent to:
Equivalencies via US EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies; modelled emissions from Climate TRACE.
Installed capacity (MW), WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0).
Operated by CFE. All plants by this company →
This coal plant burns coal to raise high-pressure steam that spins a turbine-generator. It sits in a tropical savanna climate (Köppen Aw) — Northern Hemisphere, latitude 18.0°N — which shapes how much energy it can produce and how its output varies through the year.
Monthly mean temperature
This site has effectively no heating season (tropical/equatorial climate), so winter heat loss is not the driver here. The thermal concern shifts to year-round process heat and humidity/heat-driven corrosion of hot equipment.
Climate normals: WorldClim 2.1 (1970–2000 monthly normals, 10 arc-min, CC BY 4.0); zone: Köppen-Geiger world climate classification (Kottek et al. 2006, 0.5° grid). Degree-days & heat-demand index computed by PowerAtlas — a modelled heat-demand proxy, not a measured site figure.
For a plant’s outdoor hardware — heat-recovery steam generators (HRSG), expansion joints, valves, flanges and their insulation — the local climate sets how fast unprotected steel and coatings degrade. This site sits in an aggressive, high-corrosion environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C5 — Very high), with marine salt corrosion the leading environmental stress.
Higher environmental severity is exactly where protective removable insulation pays back most: a sheltered micro-climate slows corrosion, UV and thermal-cycling damage and extends outdoor hardware service life. This is an indicative site-climate context — not a condition assessment of any specific plant or operator.
Indicative estimate via the ISO 9223:2012 informative method (atmospheric corrosivity from temperature, time-of-wetness and airborne salinity), using WorldClim climate normals, the Köppen-Geiger class and coast distance. Indicative, not a measured corrosion rate.
The #1 largest coal power plant of 4 in Mexico by capacity.
Mexico has 4 coal power plants in this dataset, together about 5,828 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 17.9837, -102.1154 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Plutarco Elías Calles (Petacalco) is a 2,778 MW source-record coal power plant in Michoacan, Mexico, commissioned in 1993.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 3,476,969 homes (estimated).
Plutarco Elías Calles (Petacalco) is operated by CFE.
Plutarco Elías Calles (Petacalco) has modelled emissions of about 6,926,400 tonnes of CO₂ per year (Climate TRACE).
