The Chilean Senate has approved the amendments to the Distributed Generation Law Project, most notably the possibility for each property or facility eligible to benefit from distributed generation to increase the installed capacity from 100 kW to 300 kW.
“As the Ministry of Energy -of Chile– we welcome the Senate´s approval of the bill by which the General Law of Electric Services is amended in the area of Distributed Generation, thus ending its processing in the National Congress and bring about the conditions for its prompt adoption. Beyond its aspects and regulatory benefits, this initiative has the virtue of focusing mainly on people, on residential customers who decide to invest in clean sources of generation for their homes, ” the Minister of Energy, Susana Jiménez explained.
“This project is aligned with what was proposed in our Energy Roadmap 2018-2022, particularly with the mega-commitment that aims to reach four times the current capacity of small-scale renewable distributed generation by 2022. Furthermore, it is framed within the government program of president Sebastián Piñera, in terms of strongly promoting the generation of electricity on a smaller scale, which directly benefits people, ” the head of Energy stressed.
The parliamentarians of all the political parties approved the amendment draft unanimously
Minister Jiménez also highlighted the transversal support achieved by the amendment bill in the Chamber of Deputies, where the parliamentarians of all the political parties approved it unanimously.
“This initiative has the virtue that it advanced on the basis of consensus and agreements. I have the strongest conviction that this is the way to achieve robust and lasting legislation, which offers the sufficient security to the various agents for them to deploy their investments, ” Jiménez said.
Amendments of Distributed Generation in Chile
In addition to the increase in installed capacity from 100 kW to 300 kW for each property or installation of a customer or end user eligible to benefit from distributed generation, the amendments envisaged to encourage self-consumption give impetus to the application of the energy injection discount to all the charges of the electricity bill instead of just to the energy charge. In addition, it makes it possible for surplus energy that cannot be deducted from billings, to be transferred to real estate or facilities owned by the same client.
On the other hand, the amendments to Distributed Generation and self-consumption also call for regulating the payment, through money obligations, of the surpluses that could not have been deducted from the electricity supply bills, in certain cases.
Other amendments envisaged under the Distributed Generation project include the socialization for the benefit of the other users of the surpluses that after five years could not have been paid or deducted thus ensuring that said surpluses are not channeled to the distributors equity or the authorisation for the installation of community or jointly owned generation systems.
