The Regulation and Policy of Latin American Energy Transitions examines the ongoing revolution within the energy landscape of Latin America. This book includes real-world examples from across the continent to demonstrate the current landscape of energy policy in Latin America. It focuses on distributed energy resources, including distributed generation, energy efficiency and microgrids, but also addresses the role of less common energy sources, such as geothermal and biogas, as well as discusses the changing role of energy actors, where consumers become prosumers or prosumagers, and utilities become service providers. The legal frameworks that are still hampering the transformation of the energy landscape are explored, together with an analysis of the economic, planning-related and social aspects of energy transitions, which can help address the issue of how inequalities are affecting and being affected by energy transitions. The book is suitable for policy makers, lawyers, economists and social science professionals working with energy policy, as well as researchers and industry professionals in the field. It is an ideal source for anyone involved in energy policy and regulation across Latin America. Reviews key legal and policy features defining success and failure within the diverse Latin American energy transitions Provides clear descriptions and comparisons of current and potential future policy frameworks in Latin America across differing social, economic, geo-political and policy contexts Analyzes the potential role of new technologies and practices in developing the region's energy economy Poses key regulatory challenges and possible means to finance the envisioned transitions

The Regulation and Policy of Latin American Energy Transitions examines the ongoing revolution within the energy landscape of Latin America. This book includes real-world examples from across the continent to demonstrate the current landscape of energy policy in Latin America. It focuses on distributed energy resources, including distributed generation, energy efficiency and microgrids, but also addresses the role of less common energy sources, such as geothermal and biogas, as well as discusses the changing role of energy actors, where consumers become prosumers or prosumagers, and utilities become service providers. The legal frameworks that are still hampering the transformation of the energy landscape are explored, together with an analysis of the economic, planning-related and social aspects of energy transitions, which can help address the issue of how inequalities are affecting and being affected by energy transitions. The book is suitable for policy makers, lawyers, economists and social science professionals working with energy policy, as well as researchers and industry professionals in the field. It is an ideal source for anyone involved in energy policy and regulation across Latin America. - Reviews key legal and policy features defining success and failure within the diverse Latin American energy transitions - Provides clear descriptions and comparisons of current and potential future policy frameworks in Latin America across differing social, economic, geo-political and policy contexts - Analyzes the potential role of new technologies and practices in developing the region's energy economy - Poses key regulatory challenges and possible means to finance the envisioned transitions

Due to the lack of systematic policy evaluations, identifying successful policies in the Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) region is a hunting task. Nevertheless, this type of analysis is crucial to inform policymakers in their decision-making process. Herein we contribute to filling this gap by assessing the progress in terms of energy services since the year 2000 and reviewing the policies that have led us to where we are.We focus on three fundamental dimensions in the definition of energy services: access to electricity and clean fuels for cooking, affordability of those energy services and quality considering both service’s interruptions and energy losses. We find that countries that have improved in all these dimensions simultaneously, catching up with the best performers in the region, are the ones that have implemented integrated policies that are part of a pluriannual plan, implemented in a strong institutional environment.Aside from macroeconomic differences, successful energy policies have in common the following characteristics: (i) important institutional reforms already in place by the end of the century; (ii) state-led plans that measure performance accounting for most dimensions simultaneously and including mechanisms to enforce preestablished objectives in targeted population; (iii) appropriate financing mechanisms to ensure affordability; and (iv) partnership with private stakeholders when their participation increases efficiency, adoption of innovation and ensure maintenance, either directly or through the involvement of local communities.Even if the discussion is presented dimension by dimension, two countries appear like having implemented successful integrated policies: Peru and Ecuador. Despite their institutional differences, they have succeeded in increasing access to affordable electricity that is more reliable (with less frequency and duration of interruptions). Additionally, Ecuador has also enhanced efficiency through electricity loss reduction thanks to enforceable performance-based regulation.Aside from these two countries, other countries have also implemented successful policies that have greatly improved one or two of the dimensions mentioned but fail to tackle all the issues simultaneously. This is the case of El Salvador with access to clean cooking and fuel subsidy reform, for example. Similarly, Nicaragua appears as an example in bridging the gap in access and Brazil, Colombia and more recently Argentina are implementing a mechanism to target demand-side subsidies based on family economic means.

Latin American Countries Energy Strategy and Regulations Handbook

Research report on the role of energy economics and energy policy in economic development in Latin America - discusses petroleum prices and market structure, alternative energy sources, population dynamics, transport policy, balance of payments, etc., and considers development planning, public enterprise in the petroleum industry, political aspects and social implications, regional cooperation and development policy. Bibliography pp. 193 to 219, graphs and statistical tables.

Government strategies for setting energy prices are not uniform across the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region—or even across fuels. Instead, they cover a full spectrum, ranging from discretionary price-fixing at one end to pure market-based approaches at the other. In between is a wide variety of other schemes such as price stabilization funds, import or export parity pricing, price smoothing through tax levels, and targeted direct price subsidies or vouchers. Governments in the LAC region, however, tend to be small as measured by government revenues as a percentage of GDP. So their limited government resources have to be used wisely and be better targeted to the poor and vulnerable. Although energy subsidies are an inefficient policy tool for protecting the welfare of the poor, energy price increases can have a big impact on these households. Energy Pricing Policies for Inclusive Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean finds that energy subsidies are highly regressive in an absolute sense—that is, the lion’s share of every dollar spent on keeping energy prices low benefits wealthier households. However, subsidies for fuels that are widely used for cooking and heating—liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), natural gas, and kerosene—as well as for electricity, can be relatively neutral or progressive, implying that lower-income households capture benefits that are proportionate to their expenditures. In other words, although poorer households receive very little from every dollar spent on energy subsidies, that small amount may represent an important share of their expenditures. It is important, then, that governments expand the coverage and depth of their social safety nets to provide relief for poor households if energy prices rise. This report also finds that aggregate price impacts and the competitiveness effects of energy price increases are moderate to small and can be smoothed out through macropolicy responses.

In the global North the commoditization of creativity and knowledge under the banner of a creative economy is being posed as the post-industrial answer to dependency on labour and natural resources. Not only does it promise a more stable and sustainable future, but an economy focused on intellectual property is more environmentally friendly, so it is suggested. Contested Powers argues that the fixes being offered by this model are bluffs; development as witnessed in Latin American energy politics and governance remains hindered by a global division of labour and nature that puts the capacity for technological advancement in private hands. The authors call for a multi-layered understanding of sovereignty, arguing that it holds the key to undermining rigid accounts of the relationship between carbon and democracy, energy and development, and energy and political expression. Furthermore, a critical focus on energy politics is crucial to wider debates on development and sustainability. Contested Powers is essential reading for those wondering how energy resources are converted into political power and why we still value the energy we take from our surroundings more than the means of its extraction.