Electricity generation and transmission expansion under uncertainty in natural gas supply

Natural gas and combined cycle generation plants have become a clean and low cost alternative for electricity generation in Latin America. Abundant natural gas resources in Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru and Argentina have made it attractive for gas networks to develop region wise. Chile chose ten years ago a path of power sector evolution based on Argentinian gas and made heavy investments to achieve it. Transmission line developments withdrew, giving place to international natural gas pipelines that brought the fuel next to the load centers, with combined cycle plants being built and planned around major cities. The global economic Argentinian crisis brought this to a halt, uncertainty in gas supply becoming the every day reality, and insecurity in future generation technologies becoming the common situation in Chile. What fuels will be attractive for future thermal plans, how to plan for transmission expansion when a recent change of law introduced centralized planning, are open questions. The presentation highlights the process and the challenges that arise.