Chile improves position in ranking of most attractive countries for NCRE investments
13-06-2012 Diario financiero – Noticias
Moved up from position 39 to 38 in Ernst & Young Report
Chile improves position in ranking of most attractive countries for NCRE investments
Survey qualifies 40 markets developing renewable energies and their suitability to implement them
Chile moved up one position in the ranking Ernst & Young quarterly elaborates to evaluate the degree of attraction countries hold when decisions to invest in NCRE development are made. Thus, during the first three months of the year our country moved upwards from position 39 to 38 in the survey that qualifies the main 40 markets furthering this kind of technologies, as well as their infrastructure and suitability for their implementation.
Veronique Bekaert, Senior Manager of Ernst & Young, explains that this improvement in Chile position is in part the result of definitions in energy policies the Government has made that, “although very general and lacking clear fiscal incentives” bring up the issue for discussion and allows for elaboration of strategies that are making a first step possible. “Being Chile included within these 40 countries implies something is being made and that is a good sign”, the expert says.
Bekaert reports that while in developed countries the economic crisis and conflicts besides the lack of public political support due to fiscal problems have caused a drop in this kind of investments, in emerging markets such as Chile or Brazil “new growing perspectives and projections may be observed because of the introduction of incentive mechanisms and application of national energy strategies”.
However, she insists that this goes hand in hand with increment of some financial privileges allowing for foreign investments to increase as it occurs in other markets.
Solar and wind
Issue No. 33 of the report also includes the All Renewable Index providing a long-term vision (up to 5 years ahead) of NCRE development in the different countries in the survey. In this regard, Chile keeps the same position as in previous ranking (38) but it improves two positions in wind energy generation (going from 36 to 34) and one step in solar energy production (from 34 to 33 position).
As per this survey our country has enough natural resources to develop clean energies but the most feasible energy providing better opportunities is solar energy with a 200 GW potential. This scenario has appealed an important number of investors to the north of Chile mainly coming from Europe and U.S.A.
On the other hand, development of wind energy may quicken at the short and mid-term thanks to the 40 GW potential it currently has which is attracting important market leaders such as the Italian Enel Green Power who recently gained the concession to operate a 99 MW wind park with plans to achieve a maximum of 360 MW.
