Is the Mexican Regulation fit for purpose?

The Green Mortgage Scheme (GMS) aims to reduce the carbon footprint of houses purchased with an INFONAVIT loan through the “so-called” echo technologies aiming to reduce water, gas, and electricity consumption in Mexico. This paper analyses whether the GMS is delivering results as expected by the Mexican government. This was examined through simulation analyses undertaken in 20 calibrated urban dwellings in the city of Toluca in Central Mexico. A total of 80 simulations were carried out with different technological settings to evaluate the different effects with regards to CO2 emissions and energy consumption. The results show that when incorporating PV panels only, the panels generated in average 859.85 kWh (standard deviation = 350 kWh, which means an average savings of MXN $748 pesos) per year. Moreover, we demonstrate how simple and cost-effective actions, such as replacing incandescent lighting with LED, may have the same, and sometimes even higher, impact than adding novel technologies such as PV panels. This work presents the first study with real calibrated models that tests the green mortgage scheme produced by INFONAVIT.