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theses

This dissertation studies the ongoing transition towards the use of renewable energy that commenced in Chile in the middle of the last decade. Chile is a developing country with high clean energy potential and a growing energy demand. The alignment of policies and economic and political conditions has already resulted in increased installed power generation capacity coming from renewable energy sources. Renewables, excepting large-scale hydropower, have grown from a negligible percentage to 17% of the mix by mid 2017. Using insights from sustainability transitions studies, and the fields of policy analysis and economics, among others, this study aims to understand why this transition has come about, focusing on the analysis of three aspects: politics, policies and dynamics of the transition. The analysis is performed using mostly qualitative methods and complemented with available quantitative data. The study shows that while some of the key factors that allow the transition to occur are circumstantial, others might offer some room for agency and allow for transition steering. On the politics side, the study unravels the crucial role that the leaders of social organizations, —environmental non-governmental organizations and renewable energy industry associations, in particular— acting as policy entrepreneurs, played in the transition process by advocating for putting the renewables’ issue on the policy agenda, pushing and lobbying the renewables’ cause, and acting as advocacy coalition builders. On the policy side, the analysis shows that the government has also contributed to opening a new market for renewable energy generation technologies in the country by creating an energy policy strategy, implementing market regulations and developing the necessary institutional capacity for materializing both policies and regulations. Moreover, the Chilean experience is found to be consistent with those of other pro-liberalization countries, seeming to indicate that completely liberalized electricity systems do not offer an adequate response to the sustainability challenges of our time, and that there is a need for balancing liberalization schemes by incorporating policy and planning measures that allow for steering systems into a socially desirable direction. The study of the Chilean transition dynamics proves the general adequacy of sustainability transition theories —the Multi-Level Perspective in particular— for the analysis of transitions occurring in developing countries, highlighting the need to frame transitions approaches in a flexible way that contributes to the understanding of processes’ dynamics while offering room for variation and novelty. Despite all valuable progress, the Chilean energy transition has been limited to the adoption of new technologies developed elsewhere. However, the Chilean experience suggests that developing countries might embark on transitions by first adopting clean energy technologies and then transitioning towards adaptation and local technology-associated development. The renewables transition then represents an opportunity for Chile to continue to move towards more sustainable development.

ETD_8232

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Carla A. Coronado

doi:10.7282/T3S185K9

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.