The importance of water energy in Chile
Conventional hydraulic energy, used for electricity generation, is one of the main sources of energy supply in Chile. The abundance of this resource in much of the country and the relief of the territory allowed water energy to be used early to produce electricity.
Although the hydraulic potential of Chilean rivers had already been used in wheat milling and some factories since the 19th century, it was at the end of the century that a step forward was taken by building electricity-generating turbines. The first Chilean hydroelectric plant was built in 1897 in Chivilingo, to illuminate the Lota mines.
In the first decades of the 20th century, it was the electrical companies that took charge of the construction of a series of hydroelectric plants to illuminate towns and cities throughout the country. Thus, the German Transatlantic Electricity Company (DUEG) built the El Sauce power plant for Valparaíso (1908) and La Florida for Santiago (1910). Ten years later, the newly founded Chilean-American electricity company, Compañía Nacional de Fuerza Eléctrica (CONAFE), built the Maitenes hydroelectric plant on the Colorado River, a tributary of the Maipo.
After the great depression of 1929, the development of the country’s electrification suffered stagnation. The city, despite enjoying the advantages of the use of public lighting, radio, cinema and domestic electrical appliances, suffered from a precarious, unstable service and rationing, while the rural world continued to be marginalized from the benefits of electrical energy.
Concerned about this situation, a group of prominent engineers began a study that became known as the Chilean Electrical Policy (1936). In this investigation it was pointed out that the country had abundant water resources, which had to be used according to a plan that had to be designed by the State. Two years later, the founding of the Production Development Corporation allowed the emergence of a national electrification plan, which proposed that, within a period of two decades, hydroelectric generation plants and distribution lines be built to improve the electrical services from north to south of Chile.
In order to develop and manage the contemplated works, it was agreed to form a state company called Empresa Nacional de Electricidad S.A. in December 1943. From this date until 1985, the company was in charge of the construction of power plants and transmission systems, while actively participating in the development of rural electrification and energy distribution. through its own electrical companies, subsidiaries and associates, from Arica to Punta Arenas.
Likewise, numerous hydroelectric plants began to be built in the areas with the highest population density, which in turn coincided with the geographical regions with the greatest water resources that allowed the generation of electrical energy. These plants had to be interconnected with each other, through high voltage electrical networks, so that energy could be transmitted from one point to another. This is how, taking advantage of the existing resources between Coquimbo and Puerto Montt, the hydroelectric plants of Pilmaiquén, Sauzal, Abanico, Los Molles, Cipreses, Sauzalito and Pullinque were built, which allowed a significant increase in the production and consumption of electrical energy, especially in the rural world, between 1944 and 1963. The great expansion of electrical energy consumption forced, from then on, the generation capacity to be doubled every seven years. Consequently, it was necessary to build large hydroelectric plants with enormous reservoirs for the accumulation of water, creating, between 1968 and 1985, the Rapel, El Toro, Antuco and Colbún-Machicura hydroelectric plants.
At the beginning of the 1980s, a new institutional framework was outlined for the electricity sector. In accordance with the free market economic policy, a new General Law of Electrical Services was promulgated in 1982 and, starting in 1985, the process of privatization of state electricity companies began. Thus, both the generation and distribution of electricity passed into the hands of the private sector, which had to face a large increase in electricity demand between 1985 and 2005. In response to this increase, a modernization was developed based on the use of natural gas to thermoelectric generation and the construction of new hydroelectric plants that, to date, must face environmental conflicts for their start-up.
