The Latin American and Caribbean Energy Organization (OLACDE), through the Executive Secretary, Alfonso Blanco, participated in the event organized by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC): Latin America: Wind Power as a Key Driver of Net Zero, held as part of the COP26 dialogues, on the morning of November 8, 2021.
At this meeting the Executive Secretary raised the importance of integrated systems in the Latin American and Caribbean region. “We are facing an energy transition with a high penetration of renewables in the near future, with systems that generate a high complementarity of integration and a crucial role in the efficiency of energy systems,” he mentioned.
He added: “We have very good integration systems in Central America, but the rest of the region is based on bilateral electricity exchanges between countries. That is why we need more integrated energy markets, with better conditions for energy transactions, and that is the challenge for the near future.
The Executive Secretary also emphasized the fact of advancing towards this type of processes and referred to the potential that the region has for the production of green hydrogen from renewable sources.
Following this same line, he assured that “integration will be a necessity to be able to develop a regional hydrogen market with the idea of exporting it to the rest of the world”. And to face this challenge, the executive secretary informed that OLACDE is working on a very ambitious initiative regarding energy integration in the southern cone of Latin America.
Referring to “creating an integrated electricity market between Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Chile and Uruguay, since the idea is to have dynamic and better integrated systems,” he explained.
“We are also working in the Andean region, besides that there are other initiatives for the northern part of South America, in the upper territory of Brazil and the Guianas [region comprising Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana],” he added.
“We need more integration and to move to better bilateral energy exchanges. If we include the high penetration rate of renewables, the role of integration in energy efficiency will be crucial,” he concluded.
Communication Department
and Institutional Relations
gabriela.jarrin@OLACDE.org
