The Mesa por el Acceso Universal A La Energía, of which Waya Energy is a member, the ARIAE Foundation and the Secretaria General Iberoamericana have recently published the report, “SDG-7 in Ibero-America. Reaching the last mile: Affordable, safe, sustainable and modern energy for all people”.

This report gathers progress and pending challenges to close the electrification gap in the LAC region. From Waya Energy and the Universal Energy Access Lab, Andrés González García and Ignacio Pérez-Arriaga, emphasize the three fundamental steps for a correct national integrated electrification plan.

Least-cost techno-economic plan integrating simultaneously all electrification modes: grid extension, microgrids and isolated PV systems.

The next step is the decision, by the Government and the relevant Public Administrations, to assign responsibility for implementing the plan to certain entities, and to specify the business model(s) to be used, with the corresponding regulations.  This series of decisions is based on the regulatory scheme called Integrated Distribution Framework that enables the implementation of the techno-economic plan and the institutional changes that will ensure its long-term stability.

The third and final step in the electrification process is the business plan, this is, determining how the techno-economic electrification plan, as conceived, is to be financed.