Best Practices and Opportunities for the Electrical Integration of CIGRE RIAC Countries

Regional electrical integration emerges as a strategic avenue to overcome these challenges, enabling the optimization of available energy resources, leveraging geographic complementarities in renewable supply, and reducing both generation and transmission costs.

It also enhances the operational reliability and resilience of national grids in the face of extreme events. Moreover, regional integration contributes to the development of a more competitive and transparent energy market, delivering benefits to consumers and reinforcing long-term sustainability.

The work includes an in-depth diagnosis of demographic, economic, energy matrix, and electricity demand forecast for South American countries. Key barriers to effective integration include infrastructure constraints, lack of coordinated planning, and fragmented or outdated regulatory frameworks. Based on this diagnosis, the study assesses the potential benefits of deeper regional integration, particularly in terms of cost reductions, more efficient use of renewable resources, and strengthened energy security and sustainability. It proposes a comprehensive framework to enable concrete progress, addressing technical, economic, regulatory, and operational dimensions that influence the feasibility of cross-border interconnections and the development of a more efficient and resilient regional electricity market.

The regulatory analysis examines the organizational structure of the electricity sector in RIAC member countries, as well as the evolution of transmission and interconnection regulations. It reviews existing regulatory and normative agreements between countries and identifies key issues that must be addressed to advance effective regional integration. The analysis highlights the importance of harmonizing national regulations, overcoming technical and administrative barriers, and promoting investment in interconnection infrastructure.

A promising technological alternative for interconnection—especially considering the limitations of grids with different frequencies (50 and 60 Hz)—is high-voltage direct current

(HVDC) transmission. Building on the system diagnosis, the study identifies potential transmission corridors based on geographical, technical, and economic factors. This includes evaluating the feasibility of historic interconnection projects between neighboring systems and exploring new network links that capitalize on complementarities in generation resources and opportunities to improve demand-supply dynamics between countries.

The work presents a set of proposals, including regulatory recommendations, technological solutions and governance guidelines to support interconnection project development. These proposals aim to foster stronger technical cooperation among RIAC countries and accelerate progress toward a more integrated, efficient, and sustainable regional electricity system.