Chile Power Shortages to Persist Amid Grid Link Problems

摘要

Energy-poor Chile's efforts to reduce its dependence on expensive LNG imports to run power plants are foundering, in part due to political wrangling in the run-up to presidential elections in November. The country has two main electricity grids, known as the SIC and the SING. The SIC, the larger, accounts for about three-quarters of installed capacity and covers the main population centers in central and southern Chile. The system, whose gross power generation totaled almost 48,900 gigawatt hours last year, relies on the region's many rivers to generate about half its electricity, but can lean more heavily on thermal power plants in droughts. The SING, which serves the main mining hub in the far northern desert, relies almost exclusively on thermal power - most fueled by LNG shipped through the Mejillones import terminal on the north coast - to generate about 16,800 GWh of electricity last year.