22 October 2009: The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) publication “Energy Policy Review – Chile 2009” highlights Chile’s success in forming a privatized, competitive, energy sector with limited domestic fossil energy supplies, and the State’s pivotal role in dealing with repeated energy supply crises.

The report illustrates how Chile overcame three periods of significant stress in the electricity sector in the last decade, and also highlights current challenges and presents recommendations for their alleviation. It evaluates the government’s current efforts to re-formulate long-term energy policy, urging Chile to finalize this process as soon as possible, and to set clear targets and objectives in order to facilitate monitoring and the creation of the correct environmental and social incentives. In addition, the report suggests a major institutional overhaul of the energy sector due to a number of shortcomings enumerated within the document, with the formation of a Ministry of Energy ranking high on the report’s list of suggestions. [IEA press release] [The report] [Executive summary]