TY  - GEN
AU  - Alarcón, Arturo
AU  - Quirós-Tortos, Jairo
TI  - Unlocking the Grid: How to Ensure Reliable and Sustainable Energy in Latin Americaand the Caribbean
PY  - 2025
Y1  - 2025/11/07
DO  - 10.18235/0013798
AB  - Electric power transmission infrastructure is the axis that will determine Latin America and the Caribbean's (LAC) ability to build resilient, reliable, and competitive energy systems. Without modern and reliable grids, the region will not be able to integrate its renewable potential, ensure supply reliability, or sustain economic and social development. Transmission is no longer a subordinate function of generation - it has become a central component of the future energy architecture. 

This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the current status, structural challenges, and opportunities for the development of transmission networks in LAC. Drawing on a review of technical, regulatory, and financial dimensions, the report identifies the main factors constraining timely infrastructure expansion and proposes a public policy and institutional roadmap to accelerate investment and innovation in the sector.

The proposal is organized around five pillars that form a transformation agenda for the region's transmission systems:

1. Planning: Strengthen planning processes to make them realistic, resilient, and coordinated, capable of anticipating future needs, integrating climatic and technological uncertainty, and translating long-term visions into executable project portfolios.
2. Regulation: Modernize regulatory frameworks to enable investment, resilience, and innovation through multi-criteria methodologies, performance-based remuneration schemes, and adaptive rules that recognize the system-wide value of the grid.
3. Financing: Mobilize public and private capital by establishing enabling conditions, predictable frameworks, and innovative tools that reduce risks, improve project bankability, and harness opportunities from climate related financing.
4. Permitting and Implementation: Optimize environmental and social procedures through greater inter-institutional coordination, strengthened technical capacities, and digital mechanisms that enhance efficiency and transparency while maintaining high sustainability standards.
5. Technological Innovation: Systematically incorporate grid-enhancing and modernization technologies such as digital solutions, automation, and advanced control systems to increase operational capacity, flexibility, and resilience across power networks.

The transmission system must be recognized as a strategic development platform, essential for energy security, regional integration, and economic competitiveness. Turning this vision into action will require political leadership, coherent regulation, and sustained institutional strengthening.

The report concludes that LAC possesses the knowledge, experience, and conditions to advance toward a new generation of transmission systems smarter, stronger, more sustainable, and development oriented. Transforming the grid into the backbone of the region's energy development will be decisive for securing a more resilient, inclusive, and
prosperous future for the region.
UR  - https://doi.org/10.18235/0013798
ER  -