The second day of Latam Mobility & Net Zero: Southern Cone 2024 began with the panel “Power to Move: Decarbonization of the Energy Matrix for an Emission-free Mobility”.
Ana Lía Rojas, Executive Director of ACERA, pointed out the challenges that Chile still has to overcome to develop renewable energies. “In Chile, demand is at 78 Tera, we have not grown according to projections, this impossibility means that we have 64% of fossil dependence which represents high costs and expenses”.
She pointed out that at the moment of high impact that the country is experiencing due to the adjustment of electricity tariffs, “the only way to defend the consumer is to electrify more. It is time for renewable contracts to enter to supply the demand, we have to leave behind the dependence on contracts indexed to fossil energies”.
Rojas stated the need to create a great national plan with 200,000 electric cars for Chile that will massify electromobility throughout the nation.
Copec Flux’s Energy Power
Rodrigo Guerrero, Corporate Operations Manager of Copec Flux, was another of the prestigious participants in the panel on decarbonization of the energy matrix.
It is worth noting that Copec Flux is a Chilean company specializing in solar energy and energy efficiency projects with more than 10 years of experience in the solar industry.
Guerrero explained that there is currently a large amount of technology on the market to take advantage of. “We must look at how to adopt technology, for example, there are batteries to adopt the solar resource.”
He pointed out that the addition of innovations is not strictly linked to regulations, but the big challenge is how to obtain creative solutions to implement technologies and take advantage of trends such as Artificial Intelligence and alternative financing to the banked.
AES Global Leadership
Camilo Botero, Business Development Manager of The AES Corporation, explained that they are a global power generation and distribution company based in the United States.
He specified that they have presence in 14 countries with 35 gigawatts of installed capacity, with the objective of fighting for the future of energy and climate change.
“In Chile we have about 4 gigawatts, 60% of the installed capacity is renewable. We have been decarbonizing our energy matrix since 2001 by retiring coal-fired power plants. This year we expect to retire power plants 1 and 2 in Tocopilla and we will continue with the retirement plan and replace them with new capacity such as solar, wind and battery storage”, he explained.
Botero stated that AES has invested US$ 3 billion in plans and strategies to decarbonize its operations, with the aim of increasing its matrix from 60% to 90% in the next few years.
Finally, Jennifer Greig, ACEN’s Representative, assured that from the association they have the great opportunity to choose renewable energy contracts in view of the high demand of clients in agreements of these characteristics.
“I come from working in the electromobility market, we demand these renewable energy contracts because of the benefits such as agreeing better prices compared to fossil fuels and obtaining more competitive prices for energy,” she said.
Greig also pointed out that connected power offers new business options such as charging infrastructure, which makes it possible to promote new technologies and massify sustainable and electric mobility.
