How to achieve full electrification: Lessons from Latin America

Albert Banal-Estanol, Joan Calzada and Jacint Jordana

Energy Policy, 2017, vol. 108, issue C, 55-69

Abstract: Electricity coverage in Latin America has increased substantially in recent decades, rising from 50% of the population in 1970 to more than 95% in 2015. Growth, however, slowed in the 1990s as many countries experienced difficulties in extending their networks further, in particular to serve those living in isolated and rural areas. In spite of this, the process of electrification was not interrupted and at the beginning of the 2010s decade most countries in the region were able to provide access to electricity to almost all of their populations. In this paper, we examine the main strategies used in Latin America to increase coverage and argue that only a combination of policy efforts has made it possible to achieve the current situation. We also examine the remaining obstacles, at policy and institutional levels, to achieving full coverage.

Keywords: Electrification; Latin America; Rural areas; Renewable energies; Subsidies; Peru (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421517303208
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:108:y:2017:i:c:p:55-69

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2017.05.036

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu (repec@elsevier.com).