Chapter 1. Recent Trends in Electricity Markets in Ecuador, Chile, and Perú In early 2012, Chile’s Ministry of Energy published a short, 40-page report outlining the longterm vision for electricity in the country, to guide all policies in the sector in the 2013-2030 period. The adjectives “limpia, segura, económica” repeat throughout the document, highlighting the basic objectives for decisions in the sector—clean, secure, and economicallyattractive electricity. It is hard to argue against any of these three qualifiers. Yet, a closer look at the actual performance data from Chile’s electricity sector reveals the difficulty in prioritizing from a set of objectives given resource constraints. Put simply, what is clean is not always cheap, and what is secure is not always clean. This conundrum applies just as well to energy planning in Ecuador and Perú. Since the publication of the country’s Strategies and Policies to Change Ecuador’s Energy Mix (2008), the government of Ecuador has taken a decisive role in the development of expensive and controversial hydropower and fossil-fired energy projects. The energy sector must “transition out of crisis mode into one of rational and efficient use of resources (…) and make investments to ensure reliable, cheap, and environmentally sustainable supplies of energy” (MEER, 2008: 11) In Perú, the Ministry of Energy outlined the sector’s priorities with the publication of a general strategy document, The Energy Sector: Guiding Report (2010). “It is of primary importance to provide secure, continuous, and quality electricity (…) with a modern regulatory scheme that has evolved to meet various economic, social, environmental, and climate challenges.” (MINEM, 2010a: 3) Peruvian authorities seek to balance centralized planning—to maximize benefits from the country’s massive natural gas reserves—with enough incentives for private investors to develop cleaner electricity generation projects, such as small hydropower.
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