IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2016 - 59

No Enrolled Bidders

Enrolled Bidders,
But None Qualified

Awarded ARR
(% of Highest Bid in Auction)

75
50
25

48

24

Awarded ARR
(Nominal US$ Million)

72

100

0

L

08

:T

20

05

20

20

06

:T

L

22

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00 kV (3 O
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0

Awarded ARR (% of Highest Bid in Auction)

Awarded ARR (Nominal US$ Million)

figure 5. The results of auctions for transmission assets in CIS (TL indicates transmission lines and TR transformers).

capacity and, consequently, to the establishment of a framework combining centralized planning and auctions to select
concessionaires in 2004.
Figure 5 shows the results of transmission auctions for
the Central Interconnected System (CIS, one of Chile's main
currently isolated subsystems) carried out since 2005. ARRs
awarded via auctions for the CIS alone amount to more than
US$160 million. The bars express the ARR for each set of
facilities in percentage of the highest bid in the auction, with
values of 100% occurring when there was a single qualified
bid for a given concession. Despite these occurrences and
the lack of bidders interested in the Lo Aguirre-Cerro Navia
(L.AG-C.NA) transmission line in 2013 (no bidders enrolled
for the 2013 auction, and the facility was tendered again in

2014), auctions have, in general, been competitive, even
recently in 2014 and 2015.
Implementation issues are not, however, unfamiliar
to Chile. Social-environmental licensing and the acquisition of rights-of-way have been pointed out as important difficulties. Societal opposition to transmission lines
is a critical issue, and open demonstrations against the
facilities are a visible symptom of the not-in-my-backyard
problem. The emblematic case of the Polpaico-Cardones
500-kV corridor between the capitol Santiago and the
north is a good example of problems faced. The corridor
has encountered strong opposition by local communities,
as shown Figure 6. In the meantime, spot prices in the
north have often reached zero values, with abundant solar
and wind energy unable to be exported to the capitol.
These factors contributed to project approval processes
being subject to judicialization in the recent past, causing
significant delays in project implementation. In fact, the
first transmission projects listed in Figure 5 suffered severe
delays; the delays of the Charrúa-Nueva Temuco (CHARN.TE), El Rodeo-Chena (RODE-CHEN) and Polpaico-
Nogales (PLOP-NOGA) transmission lines were 19, 18, and
21 months, respectively. In June 2012, the Chilean Ministry
of Energy recognized that the average delays in the implementation of transmission infrastructure were of 18 months.

Seeking Solutions to the
Implementation Conundrum
figure 6. Opposition to the Polpaico-Cardones corridor.
The banner reads "No to high-voltage towers!" (Courtesy of
newspaper El Día, La Serena, Chile.)
60

ieee power & energy magazine

In the second semester of 2015, the Chilean president proposed a bill to Congress (Message #731-363), formulating
several improvements to the electricity transmission model.
july/august 2016
http://www.CARD-D.AL http://L.AG-C.NA http://L.AG-C.NA http://L.AG-C.NA
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