Mexico already runs one of the world's largest air-conditioning and refrigeration industries. A heat pump is the same machine pointed at heating. This is the map from a proven thermal base to the product the world's electrification of heat will buy, and the institutional sequence for the conversion.
What Heat Pumps means in procurement terms and where Mexico's thermal-equipment base sits today.
Heat Pumps maps the thermal-equipment chain a heat-pump industry is built from: the AC and refrigeration base, the compressors, the heat exchangers, the controls, and the water heaters the product displaces. Unlike the platform's other plays, the target product is small today, and that smallness is the finding. The base that makes it is world-scale.
Named heat-pump lines export $348M. The chain around them exports $25.2B with 21 of 24 products above RCA 1: equipment parts at RCA 6.4, AC units at 8.0, refrigerators at 7.6, water heaters at 9.7. Which means the play is a conversion rather than a construction: the same plants, coils, and compressors, pointed at the product heating electrification buys.
Validated Trade data, RCA, subnational geography, bilateral partners. Hypothesis Procurement category mapping pending counterpart review.
Seven procurement categories from a world-scale base to the conversion target.
Dominant RCA 6.39
The chain's largest single code. $5.5B of air-conditioning machine parts at RCA 6.39, larger than every named heat-pump line combined. Parts serve air conditioners and heat pumps alike, so this capability transfers to the conversion nearly unchanged.
Leading reported state exports, 2025: Nuevo León (USD 1.45B; 33.7%), Coahuila de Zaragoza (USD 1.43B; 33.4%), San Luis Potosí (USD 360.9M; 8.4%). The US takes 98.2% in the bilateral source; leading import origins: United States (41.4%), China (27.9%), Thailand (6.3%). State values locate reported trade, not physical production.
Deep base Fridges RCA 7.55
The deepest adjacent base: $7.2B across heat exchangers, commercial refrigeration, household refrigerators, and display cases. A refrigerator is a sealed heat-pump circuit in a cabinet: the coil-forming, brazing, charging, and testing capability is the same craft.
Leading reported state exports, 2025: Nuevo León (USD 2.98B; 61.8%), Tamaulipas (USD 519.8M; 10.8%), San Luis Potosí (USD 346.0M; 7.2%). The US takes 95.9% in the bilateral source; leading import origins: China (41.3%), United States (35.0%), South Korea (6.2%). State values locate reported trade, not physical production.
Conversion base RCA 8.04
The plants that become heat-pump plants. Cooling-only AC units export $1.5B at RCA 8.04: the same product family as a reversible heat pump minus the reversing valve, the inverter drive, and the controls. An AC line converts with incremental capital rather than a greenfield build.
Leading reported state exports, 2025: Nuevo León (USD 1.14B; 58.2%), Baja California (USD 493.8M; 25.2%), Tamaulipas (USD 185.8M; 9.5%). The US takes 98.3% in the bilateral source; leading import origins: China (78.4%), United States (13.5%), Italy (1.4%). State values locate reported trade, not physical production.
Mexico already runs a world-scale thermal-equipment industry: parts, coils, cabinets, and finished units worth $14.8B a year. What follows is where the conversion gets technical.
Technology gap Net importer
The technology heart of a heat pump. Refrigeration compressors export $1.0B at RCA 2.19 but net-import $0.4B. Heat pumps specifically need variable-speed inverter compressors rated for low-GWP refrigerants, the segment the import bill says Mexico still buys.
Leading reported state exports, 2025: Coahuila de Zaragoza (USD 1.10B; 29.8%), Tamaulipas (USD 665.1M; 18.0%), Baja California (USD 566.5M; 15.3%). The US takes 91.8% in the bilateral source; leading import origins: China (35.3%), United States (31.1%), South Korea (6.6%). State values locate reported trade, not physical production.
Strong Thermostats RCA 5.13
Thermostats export $677M at RCA 5.13; regulating instruments add $2.0B and valves $2.5B. The transition moves value into exactly this tier: a heat pump earns its efficiency in the controls: defrost logic, inverter modulation, grid-interactive operation.
Leading reported state exports, 2025: Chihuahua (USD 1.42B; 31.4%), Nuevo León (USD 571.9M; 12.6%), Guanajuato (USD 548.7M; 12.1%). The US takes 93.4% in the bilateral source; leading import origins: United States (37.8%), China (19.6%), Germany (9.6%). State values locate reported trade, not physical production.
Most concentrated RCA 9.69
Mexico's single most specialized position in the chain: gas instantaneous water heaters at RCA 9.69. Small in dollars ($634M), large in meaning: this is the installed base heat-pump water heaters displace, made by a largely Mexican-owned segment.
Leading reported state exports, 2025: Ciudad de México (USD 0.1M; 100.0%). The US takes 0.0% in the bilateral source; leading import origins: China (59.9%), United States (18.8%), Japan (11.0%). State values locate reported trade, not physical production.
Everything above is the base. What follows is the target product: small today, and the reason this card exists.
The target Reversible units RCA 3.67
The named product is small: $348M across reversible AC-type heat pumps (RCA 3.67, $329M) and dedicated non-AC heat pumps (RCA 0.16, net importer). Mexico makes heat pumps the air-conditioning way rather than the hydronic way, which is where global residential demand is heading.
Leading reported state exports, 2025: Nuevo León (USD 147.3M; 99.9%), Baja California (USD 0.1M; <0.1%). The US takes 99.9% in the bilateral source; leading import origins: China (62.0%), United States (33.5%), Italy (1.2%). State values locate reported trade, not physical production.
Categories mapped by electrification relevance and disruption risk. Equipment Parts and Heat Exchange & Refrigeration anchor the play: deep capability, low disruption. Compressors and Controls carry the technology risk; Water Heating carries the demand risk.
Circle size reflects export volume. The strategic action is in converting what the biggest circles already make: reversibility, inverter drive, and low-GWP refrigerants, category by category.
Observed state exports and broad-industry employment, with site evidence shown separately.
State export value, product-space proximity and broad-industry employment describe different aspects of the geography. Read their scope and observation periods separately.
The lenses agree more here than on any other card. <span class="dp">Nuevo Leon</span> leads employment outright (LQ 4.70, 35% of the national chain workforce, concentrated in Santa Catarina, Apodaca and Cienega de Flores) and carries $6.7B of state exports. <span class="dp">Coahuila</span> (Ramos Arizpe, RCA 3.79) and <span class="dp">San Luis Potosi</span> (RCA 3.10, the Daikin campus) follow. Relatedness puts <span class="dp">Aguascalientes</span> and the Bajio closest in product space: the conversion has more places to land than the current plants occupy.
Working hypothesis Method follows Hausmann & Hidalgo (2007, PNAS). Relatedness density (product-space ϕ) from nzipl_state_relatedness_density.json; DENUE LQ from DataMexico inegi_denue multi-month (2024-2025). State trade values are a geography signal from Mexico's customs-based subnational source and are never summed against BACI national figures. Full method →
Who buys the chain's output, how world demand is moving, and where the next markets are.
Partner shares: OEC Mexico / DataMexico, 2025, reported states plus Not Reported. The denominator includes all reported partner values in the category. National BACI amounts use 2024 and different coverage. Calendar reconciliation does not establish reporting finality.
The US takes 99.9% of named heat-pump equipment and 98.2% of equipment-part exports in the 2025 bilateral source. Water-heating observations instead lead to Costa Rica (40.3%). These distributions have different coverage from the national BACI amounts and do not identify the buyer or end-use market.
USMCA implications: HVAC equipment moves duty-free under USMCA with regional content rules far less demanding than automotive. The exposure is demand-policy risk rather than tariff risk: US efficiency floors (SEER2) and refrigerant rules (the A2L transition) decide which products qualify, and a plant that converts early inherits the market of those that convert late.
Imports tell the technology story. Compressors arrive from the US, China, and Japan: the inverter-compressor segment Mexico has not localized. Controls imports skew to China. Self-contained AC units carry a $1.0B import gap: a domestic cooling market served from abroad while domestic plants export.
Each import line above RCA parity is an addressable substitution market with a named product and a named plant type. The compressor line is the largest and hardest; the finished-unit lines are the cheapest to take.
How much of every export dollar stays in Mexico, who adds the rest, and what this chain already buys from abroad.
World trade in the named heat-pump codes ran −11%/yr from the 2022 European crisis peak, while compressors (+3.3%/yr) and heat exchange (+3.1%/yr) kept growing. "Clean technology" and "growing trade" are not the same claim, and this table shows the difference rather than assuming either.
The demand case rests on the policy pipeline rather than the trend line: US efficiency floors and heat-pump incentives, EU building electrification, and, beside the US, Germany, France, and Italy are the chain's largest import markets. The table lists, per category, world demand growth 2022–24, Mexico's US share, and the largest markets beyond the US and Mexico.
Source: CEPII BACI HS22 bilateral, world imports 2022–2024. Diagnostic context—these figures are not inputs to the play score.
The firms making this chain in Mexico, each on a citation you can open
The firms we could document sit in a barbell. Mexican-controlled companies appear where the chain starts, drawing the copper tube that becomes every coil, and again where it ends, assembling finished refrigeration and appliance units. Between and above those two points we searched and found none: not among the firms making coils, motors, fans, valves and switches, and not at the one operation we could document making the electronics that decide when a machine runs.
That middle tier is where a chain keeps its margin, and the control tier is where it keeps its software. Both are present in Mexico and both are owned from abroad. A content rule can require more local purchasing; it cannot by itself move who owns the plant that sells to it, which is why the finance and standards sections of this card matter to the same question.
Four research rounds are behind this table and it is not finished. Every firm here was found, cited and then independently challenged, and rows that could not survive that were left out. Where a cell says nothing has been searched, that is an admission and not a result. Two cells were worked in more than one round and stay empty for reasons we publish in them. Expect this table to grow, and expect some rows to move as better documents turn up.
A row needs one document that names the Mexican site and the product in the same sentence. A page that says where a company is, used to assert what it makes, is not evidence: delete every Mexican place name and if the sentence is still true, it was a claim about the group. Each row carries that sentence verbatim, in the language it was written in. Ownership is the economy that ultimately controls the firm, which is often not the one the brand suggests: a Mexican water-heater brand on this table is Italian-owned, and a cooler maker once held by a Mexican group now answers to a US fund.
Choose a category and destination to see the evidence needed for approval.
Product class comes first. The reference route covers ducted air-source equipment. Confirm applicability against the Mexican equipment range defined in NOM-011-ENER-2025. Water heaters have a separate US DOE route; the AHRI space-conditioning program does not cover them.
Match performance, safety and refrigerant evidence. AHRI’s catalogue lists a 2026 standard while the reviewed USHP program refers to 2024; confirm the program’s adopted revision. Refrigerant rules depend on subsector, activity and equipment date. EPA’s May 2026 changes mean a blanket January 2026 installation cutoff is outdated for qualifying older inventory.
Budget the actual test package. NOM-011 specifies sampling and family conditions. ANCE’s published certification-service fee is MXN 14,344 plus VAT, with a five-day listed service and separate travel/extras. Confirm laboratory scope, samples and availability; neither this tariff nor a document price establishes the complete qualification budget.
Verified Published requirements and source dates are reviewed separately from project applicability. Working thesis The proposed pathway still needs a selected product, site and buyer.
What comes first, which gates bind, and which actors need to move.
Phase 1: Define the conversion. Confirm the product class, destination, refrigerant and applicable test requirements. Determine the laboratory scope and obtain quotations. Review any proposed Multilateral Fund support against the relevant country plan and implementing-agency criteria before including it as a funding source.
Phase 2 (12-36 months): Convert. Anchor OEM converts AC lines to reversible units: reversing valves, inverter drive, A2L charging. The $60-230M conversions in Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, and San Luis Potosi are the phase's spine.
Phase 3: assess localization and release. Compare an actual compressor or line proposal with the applicable equipment test and customer-acceptance route. AHRI ratings apply to specified model combinations; qualifying a product does not certify an entire converted factory.
Phase 4 (36-72 months): Scale. FIDE-model demand programs open the domestic heat-pump water-heater market; second-wave capacity and the export guarantee cap scale what Phase 2 proved. The base converts or the substitution imports. By month 72 the answer is visible.
Seven gates. The swimlane above shows who is active when; the gates below are the decision points that, if slipped, shift the whole 72-month sequence. Gate timing is hedged: typical windows, not contractual milestones.
The compressor gate is compound. Localization at M24–42 requires a technology licensor, an anchor offtake from the converted lines, and a DFI risk tranche to converge. No single actor moves first. Coordination, rather than capex, is the binding constraint.
Institutional actors: CONUEE (efficiency standards), SEMARNAT/UNIDO (Kigali refrigerant transition, MLF funding), SE (PROSEC/IMMEX, certification subsidies), CFE and FIDE (demand-side programs), NAFIN (equipment credit), Bancomext (export guarantees), international DFIs (IFC, IDB Invest). The finance section maps which instruments activate at each gate.
Mexico's heat-pump play is a conversion: the thermal-equipment base is world-scale, the named product is small, and the distance between them is reversibility, inverter drive, and refrigerants, which means the play converts plants and certifies products rather than building an industry from zero.
The Constraint Maps tab ranks where the grid binds each play and maps each constraint to the instruments and actors that move it. The finance architecture below is this card's finance input.
Validated Play selection basis, trade data, subnational geography, bilateral partners, world-demand series. Working hypothesis Procurement categories, standards mapping, transition assessments, sequencing. Pending counterpart and technical unit review.
A named-firm roster (who makes what in Mexico, and who owns them) ships on this card as the supplier lineup, and the same question is answered at greater depth for the auto supply chain (Auto Supplier, the supplier lineup). The investment records below are the pipeline view of the same chain.). This card gains one when its firms are researched to the same four-gate standard; the investment records below are its seed.
Scoped costs, cash timing and conditional financing for a defined project.
The worked reference is a documented commercial heat-pump conversion in China, implemented in 2011–2013. Its design, prototype, line-conversion, trial and training costs retain nominal USD and their original scope. The laboratory subtotal is already included. Use it to structure a current Mexico quotation, with refrigerant and product suitability reviewed.
Choose a category to see its budget drivers and relevant precedents. The worked package prices only its stated scope. Historical investments retain their own date, currency and exclusions; a named investment does not establish the cost or financing of a new project.
Documented Public cost anchors with their scope and period. Modelled Explicit quantities and arithmetic. Delivered quotations, integration, qualification and the complete project budget remain to be established.
The sensitivities separate an eligible equipment invoice, other project uses and the operating cash cycle. Financing ceilings use the denominator named by the provider; the remaining uses need their own funding source.
Normalized units make the arithmetic visible without inventing a project budget. Replace sales, cash costs, purchases, inventory and payment days with the sponsor’s evidence. A small equipment example does not meet a lender’s minimum ticket merely because the same percentage is shown.
Compare the borrower, intended use, currency, minimum and maximum amount, and published eligibility of each product. The provider still needs to assess repayment and its own credit conditions. A public product description establishes a screening route; project approval remains to be established.
Multilateral Fund support depends on the relevant country plan, eligibility and implementing-agency review. A historical funded conversion does not establish a new award. Daikin publishes access to specified R32 patents; check the actual patent terms, other intellectual property and process know-how before assigning a licensing cost.
Define the product and test plan, price the configured equipment and site works, agree acceptance evidence, then plan production and collection. Each step names the evidence to assemble and a proposed role. Confirm dependencies with the actual customer, supplier and financing provider.
An engineering lead can close the process specification; purchasing can obtain delivered quotations; finance can reconcile uses, payment milestones and repayment. Assign accountable people and dates only when a sponsor adopts the plan. The sequence carries no promised duration or commitment.
Documented Published product features and named precedents. Modelled / working hypothesis Explicit quantities, cost boundaries and cash sensitivities. Confirm project scope, eligibility, quotations and assignments.
Observed employment and payroll, modeled taxes and explicit tax-base assumptions
Open this section before printing from the browser menu so the fiscal evidence is included.
Depth is additive to the platform's play-selection methodology. Capability (RCA + Relatedness Density + DENUE LQ) and the world-demand series are computed; standards, finance, and sequencing are authored hypotheses grounded in public sources. All numeric ranges are hedged. Click the panel below to expand.
Mexico builds the machine that moves heat. It has not yet named it a heat pump. The path forward: set the heating standard, fund the labs, pay for the refrigerant transition, convert the anchor lines, localize the compressor, and open the domestic market. The base converts, or the substitution imports.