Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, June 18, 2026 – CFE is preparing to bring a new electrical substation online in 5 de Diciembre, a move meant to strengthen service across one of Puerto Vallarta’s busiest power corridors, from 5 de Diciembre south toward Olas Altas.
This stretch includes Centro, Emiliano Zapata, the Romantic Zone, restaurants, bars, small hotels, short-term rentals, condos, and older residential blocks now pulling far more electricity than the area once required.
CFE has not published a precise start date. The substation is expected to begin operating in the coming weeks, near the utility’s offices in 5 de Diciembre. Any service changes tied to the connection work should be announced before they happen.
The immediate benefit should be more capacity close to where demand is rising. The new installation is expected to reduce pressure on the existing substations serving the area from El Nogalito and the Libramiento corridor.
Public CFE investment records also point to the same underlying need. A project listed as “Centro Banco 1” in Puerto Vallarta was designed to provide electric service with “quality and reliability” to current customers and new development in the municipality. The 2024 CFE investment portfolio listed the project at about 34.7 million pesos.
That detail gives the announcement more weight. This is not a routine neighborhood repair. It is part of the kind of grid work Puerto Vallarta needs as older central neighborhoods absorb more tourism, housing, refrigeration, air conditioning, and nightlife demand.
The wider bay area is also on CFE’s radar. A separate federal infrastructure listing for “SE Atención al suministro en la zona Vallarta” includes three substation projects in Jalisco and Nayarit, with a total transformation capacity of 225 MVA and an estimated investment of 195.9 million pesos.
A new substation adds capacity and improves the grid’s margin. It does not erase every local fault, storm impact, overloaded transformer, or maintenance cut.
The practical thing to watch is the cutover notice. Businesses with refrigeration, elevators, point-of-sale systems, or evening operations should pay close attention if CFE announces a planned interruption while circuits are shifted to the new equipment.
For residents in 5 de Diciembre, Centro, Emiliano Zapata, and the Olas Altas area, the project is a reminder of how much the city’s core has changed. Puerto Vallarta’s electricity demand is no longer shaped only by households and small hotels. It is now driven by a denser, busier, year-round mix of tourism, housing, and local business.
DataTur’s January 2026 hotel monitoring placed Puerto Vallarta among Mexico’s strongest hotel markets, with 81.5% occupancy for the month. That demand shows up not only in hotel rooms, but in kitchens, cooling systems, laundry, lighting, elevators, and the street-level businesses that keep the tourist zone running.
