7 September 2012: The II Latin American and the Caribbean Electricity Seminar (“ELEC2012”) focused on challenges posed to power generation and distribution systems in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) by renewable energy technologies.

ELEC2012, held from 3-4 September 2012 in San Jose, Costa Rica, was attended by about 200 participants, including representatives of governments, the private sectors and utilities of most of OLADE’s 27 member countries, as well as representatives of regional and international organizations.

The conference keynote speaker, Costa Rican Energy Minister René Castro, discussed how the power generation sector is expected to contribute to Costa’s Rica goal of making it the first “carbon neutral” country. During the seminar, topics discussed included: regulatory mechanisms to promote use of renewable energy sources; feed-in tariffs; financial and tax mechanisms to promote renewable energy use; distributed generation; regulatory barriers to interconnection; modeling renewable energy impacts in power generation studies; system stability and product/services quality effects of large-scale renewable energy use; the role of smart grids; and the implications of greater electric vehicle use in the region.

ELEC2012 was organized by the Latin American Energy Organization (OLADE) and hosted by Costa Rica’s Ministry of Environment, Energy and Telecommunications Ministry (MINAET), Electricity Institute (ICE) and National Power and Light Company (CNPL), with support from the German Government, the Latin American Development Bank (CAF), Secretariat of the Central American Integration System (SICA), and the Energy and Environment Partnership with Central America (EEP). [OLADE Press Release]