A week ago, the Panel of Experts, the collegiate body that rules on electricity disputes, rejected a discrepancy (No. 30) filed by France's Engie, which drew the interest and support of several electricity companies. The company disagreed with the fact that the National Electricity Coordinator (CEN), through the preliminary 2027 complementary services (SSCC) report published in June, did not include an analysis of the strength of the grid in the north of the country, which could have defined the possible need for more infrastructure in the system. The panel backed the Coordinator in this discrepancy and settled that one must wait for the organization's robustness study, which will be published in February 2027 and will define the issues in question. The Coordinator argued that the decline in strength in the northern zone is evident, but that the available background data—studies from 2022 and 2023—are not sufficient to be applied today, since more technical background is required to make decisions. Friday, February 12, 2016
Thematic photographs of high-voltage towers
Photo: Victor Tabja Victor Tabja "The available data do not allow concluding that the same deficit of 2023 persists, nor quantifying an additional one automatically using the methodology employed in the analysis carried out that year," he argued. And he added, in response to Engie, that "anticipating a process and correcting it afterwards assumes that the results of the 2023 methodology will be sufficiently consistent with those of the Robustness Study, requiring only minor adjustments. That premise is rejected, since it is estimated that the new study has a different methodology, of greater scope and depth." Technically, the organization explained, it is necessary to establish "the influence of BESS based on IBR-GFM and IBR-GFL, both in charging and discharging, the effective contribution of GFM resources and other relevant modifications, such as a possible massification of large loads, including data centers." "Problems stemming from the loss of electrical robustness can lead to blackouts" "The Coordinator is obliged to identify, in each annual SSCC report, the requirements for the safe operation of the SEN, with the tools and methodologies it has available. It cannot postpone a decision when what is at stake is the security of the SEN. And even if it could, we do not think it is a good idea to do so. Postponing the decision carries the risk of arriving late with the infrastructure," Engie demanded in its complaint, which was supported by Colbún, Transelec, and the Association of Transmission Companies of Chile. "If the decision is made today to trigger the tender for new infrastructure and, later, in February 2027, it is determined that this requirement did not exist (or is different from what is foreseen today), the Coordinator will still have time to modify or cancel the tender. It is much more costly for the system to arrive late with infrastructure needed for its safe and efficient operation than to cancel a tender that has not yet been awarded." Colbún, which endorsed Engie's position, said that it is appropriate for "the CEN to proceed to carry out the analyses of the requirements of the northern zone of the CEN, defining the technical resources for the provision of the SSCC that are necessary for the safe and efficient operation of the system, without excusing itself by citing other studies." But the warning from the Matte Group's electricity arm was greater. "International experience shows that problems stemming from the loss of electrical robustness can lead to blackouts of great magnitude, as happened with the Spain blackout of April 28, 2025, which originated from a drop in generation within seconds, causing a loss of stability that the system could not contain." "Postponing the decision carries the risk of arriving late with the infrastructure," said Engie. It added: "the inverter-based plants did not adequately contribute to the stability of the system, which made it difficult to contain the fault once it began. On the other hand, the 2016 South Australia blackout, caused by the failure of multiple wind turbines, caused the system frequency to drop and, with it, an 8-hour blackout." Waiting for the robustness study For years, different actors, including the Coordinator, have warned about the loss of technical attributes in the northern zone of the National Electricity System (SEN), due to the replacement of generation supply from synchronous units to inverter-based installations (IBRs), Engie said in its complaint. Two of those attributes are short-circuit power and inertia. In 2022 and 2023, the Coordinator conducted studies to analyze the strength of the electricity system, and there it defined the installation of new infrastructure, in what it called a "first stage." The process concluded in May 2024 with the award of five offers to install synchronous condensers, with the companies Alupar, Engie, and Transelec selected for this purpose. In that process, the Coordinator determined that by 2030 the installation of a minimum of 1,600 MVAr was necessary. Another study, commissioned by the trade association Generadoras de Chile from the international consultancy Estudios Eléctricos, determined that the electricity system presented a structural deficit in voltage strength. And that the projections to 2030-2031, even considering the incorporation of the synchronous condensers tendered by the Coordinator and other infrastructure, showed that the system remained weak during daytime hours. Humberto Verdejo: "we are massively incorporating renewable generation and storage, while at the same time retiring conventional power plants that have historically contributed to the stability of the system."
29.08.2012 Patricio Fuentes. PATRICIO FUENTES Y. "This condition could be mitigated through the incorporation of approximately 2.8 GVA nominal additional synchronous condensers, beyond those already tendered," the report proposed. However, the Panel of Experts determined that the 2023 SSCC report has significant methodological limitations because the solution chosen must consider the contributions of IBR equipment. "It must be borne in mind that this is not, without further ado, suitable for modeling the contribution of IBR equipment. To fulfill the intended purposes, it must be updated or complemented in accordance with the methodological criteria proposed by the Robustness Study," the ruling states. Ruling in favor of Enel Previously, in discrepancy No. 29, Italy's Enel disagreed with the June SSCC report, stating that it did not carry out a sufficiency analysis of the existing complementary voltage control service in the northern zone of the SEN. It detailed the need for technical resources that provide short-circuit power, dynamic voltage support, and other operational attributes. The ruling resolved in favor of Enel, instructing the preparation of a new version of the 2027 complementary services report, in which it ordered that the Coordinator must determine, in line with voltage control, the quantitative requirement of technical resources to preserve the voltage stability of the SEN in the northern zone of the country. To achieve this, it defined identifying the current available technical resources to meet the requirements, as well as those that prove necessary, defining the mechanism to make it happen. For both discrepancies (29 and 30), the Coordinator submitted the same document. The Coordinator's anticipation "The Coordinator has been anticipating these challenges for several years and concrete decisions have already been adopted to strengthen the grid," the CEN tells Pulso, recalling the aforementioned infrastructure award, "whose entry into operation will begin in the coming months and will allow the system to have more resources contributing strength than those it has today." The Coordinator argues that the challenge is to determine in a timely manner "what combination of cost-efficient resources will be necessary at each stage of this transformation, on the basis of studies, simulations, and technical evidence." Daniela González: "Today the effort is underway to clearly identify what those attributes or needs of the system are." Following the Panel of Experts' decision in the Enel discrepancy, the Coordinator states that they are "updating the Complementary Services report, as defined by the electricity Panel of Experts, a document that will be published in the coming days." The lawyer and director of Domo Legal, Daniela González, concludes after the rulings that "the transition toward a matrix that assumes fewer synchronous power plants and more converter-based installations has completely changed the way the system operates." This, she indicated, "generates the need to have attributes that were not previously required because they were part of what thermal power plants provided. Today the effort is underway to clearly identify what those attributes or needs of the system are, and how that translates into some specific complementary service." For his part, regarding the Engie ruling, academic Humberto Verdejo said that it is reasonable to have technical studies that allow adequately sizing the solutions, but that the problem raised by Engie is real and is one of the main challenges of the Chilean energy transition: "we are massively incorporating renewable generation and storage, while at the same time retiring conventional power plants that have historically contributed to the stability of the system."