Chile is a country in dramatic need of a secure power supply. Developments in generation and transmission have not kept pace with Chile’s economic growth and only energy-saving measures are preventing the grid from another collapse. To address this issue, the government took an important step in February this year when it released a new energy master plan. Its goal is to increase Chile’s installed capacity base to 25 gigawatts (GW) from 17 GW by 2020.

As a result of market-driven policies, Chile has had rapid growth since a popular referendum put an end to Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in 1988. Since then, the economy has posted average annual gross domestic product growth of 5.4%. The 2012 growth rate is forecast at 5.9%, and growth of 4.3% and 4.5% is expected in 2013 and 2014 respectively. Mining, the engine of this economic success, is particularly affected by the lack of reliable power supply.